


Revolutionary

by allisondraste



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Commonwealth Minutemen (Fallout 4), F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, There Was Only One Room
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27935461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allisondraste/pseuds/allisondraste
Summary: In the aftermath of personal tragedies, Preston and Charlie both seek to make a difference in the Commonwealth and those around them.  They could never anticipate the impact that they will have on eachother in the process.
Relationships: Preston Garvey & Piper Wright, Preston Garvey & Sturges, Preston Garvey/Female Sole Survivor, Preston Garvey/Sole Survivor, Robert Joseph MacCready & Female Sole Survivor, Robert Joseph MacCready & Sole Survivor
Comments: 69
Kudos: 19





	1. Paul Revere

**Author's Note:**

> “You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”  
> ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

**Qunicy Ruins, June 2288**

When Preston was a kid, he’d sit with his dad on their tattered rug as the man picked lackadaisically at the strings of an ancient guitar. He’d wax all sorts of poetic about the past, the times before the war, before the bombs fell, before everything was rads and raiders and running from bands of ferals. It was that Great Commonwealth Myth of a pre-war paradise, of big ideals, and boundless opportunity. A myth that one would hear refuted if they listened closely enough to grumbles from ghouls who’d managed to keep their sanity over the two centuries since the end of the world. 

The myth was a lie, for sure, one Preston had clung to for most of his life. But he couldn’t anymore, not as he stood staring at the massive pile of ashes that used to be his comrades and the settlers they attempted to protect. The bastards who murdered all of those people were direct descendents from the monsters who made weapons with enough power to wipe entire regions off the map. There was no paradise; it was just a prettier picture. 

The Quincy settlement, if he could still call it that, looked a lot different since the last time he’d seen it, surrounded by junk fences and lined with barbed wire at the top. Buildings were tagged with Gunner graffiti, and the streets were quiet as the mass grave that the settlement had turned out to be. It really didn’t make much sense. Shouldn’t it have been some sort of bustling Gunner stronghold after Clint and his buddies went to all that trouble to claim it?

“I don’t like this,” Charlie remarked suddenly, her raspy voice a quick reminder that he wasn’t alone, hadn’t been alone for over eight months now. He turned to face her, eyes flicking around the ruins to the seven other Minutemen who’d come along. Millie was the only one who noticed him, and she gave him the least reassuring smile he’d ever seen. 

“Neither do I,” he agreed as he returned his gaze to Charlie. “Not one bit.” 

“It wasn’t like this when I got away,” Millie added, glancing around the square, “I know that there had been mention of disagreements between Clint and the other bosses, probably because he has the leadership ability of a bloatfly.”

Preston smirked. “Now, Millie, I think that’s giving him too much credit.” 

She laughed and opened her mouth to reply to him, but an explosion rang out instead as a launched projectile crashed into one of the buildings just ahead of them. She eyed the area frantically before locking onto the rooftop of the church. “Shit. It’s Baker.”

“Baker?” He snapped his gaze up to the walkway, catching a glimpse of a figure clad in power armor and wielding a goddamned fat man.

“He’s one of the other bosses… and it looks like he found himself a new toy.” 

Preston sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, running through the list of possible strategies in his head. “We need to fall back,” he muttered under his breath decisively, then looked up to make the suggestion to Charlie, to the general, “We need to fall b--”

She’d already taken off toward the church, a pistol in either hand, without giving a single order to him or the others. He wanted to drop everything and chase after her, to stop her from running directly into danger, just once. But someone had to give some kind of instruction before Baker launched a nuke directly on top of them. He waved his hand over his head and back toward the gates, motioning for the others to head back out of the middle of town. “Fall back. Head up to the walkways if you can. We can’t win this from the ground.”

Millie remained where she stood as the others fled to safety. “I’ll get these guys into position,” she stated, then nodded in the direction Charlie had run, “You go fetch your general.” 

“But--” Another mini nuke exploded, in the distance this time, and his stomach lurched. 

“Go.” She flicked her wrist in a shooing motion. “You’re not gonna be any use back here worried about her out there trying to pistol whip Baker to death.” 

He snorted out a laugh despite the gravity of the situation, the image of the rail thin red-head successfully tackling him down, power armor and all, and smacking the butt of her favorite 10mm into his nose. Honestly, he’d seen her get away with wilder things. He tipped his hat at his long time friend, gave his musket a quick crank, and ran off after his wildcard general. 

He faced little resistance on his way to the church, only a couple of Gunner conscripts crossed his path, and he was able to take them out easily. It looked like a lot of their efforts were focused on Millie and the others at the gates and climbing up the walkways. It was for the best, but it didn’t make him worry any less for their safety. 

When he finally reached the church, it was too quiet, especially for somewhere Charlie was supposed to be. There was no gunfire, no talking, nothing. Just silence. Preston scanned the area, heart pounding uncomfortably in his chest. After everything Charlie had been through, all she’d survived, she couldn’t be dead now, not while doing a favor for him, not with all that unfinished business between them. She couldn’t. 

Several moments passed, and there were still no signs of life in the area. He decided to head inside the church, figure out how to get up to the roof for a better view. Just as he moved toward the door, a loud clank of metal sounded behind him and he spun on his heels, weapon readied. 

It was the traitor himself that he turned to face, Clint, in his hulking suit of stolen power armor, a militia hat perched disrespectfully atop his buzz cut head. He still wore sunglasses that were so reflective that Preston could see his own furious face in the lenses. Clint let out an arrogant chuckle, and stomped up closer. 

“Well, well, well,” he mocked, “What do we have here? Paul Revere himself?”

“Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to correct a man he intended to kill, but the words slipped out. 

“I know who you are. Read _all_ about you in Ol’ Ezra’s holotapes.” Clint laughed again. “And the Minutemen don’t exist anymore. I got rid of the last of ‘em, myself. 

“You missed one,” Preston remarked, dryly. 

“What? _You?_ Ha!.” Clint shook his head. “And that merry band of farmers you marched in through the front gate with? Kind of a rookie move, there, son.” 

“ _Don’t_ call me son,” Preston spat, venom filling his mouth. 

Before he could react, Clint’s armored fist slammed into his chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and sending him flying back against the rusty skeleton of an old car. Preston’s head crashed against the metal, and pain pulsed out from the point of impact throughout his whole head. His vision spun around him, creating a double of the man who towered over him. He felt sick to his stomach, and couldn’t quite figure out how to get back to his feet or where his weapon went. Darkness crept in at the corners of his vision. 

“I hate mouthy punks,” Clint growled. 

Preston attempted to speak, but couldn’t find words in the chaos of his head. He mumbled something even he couldn’t interpret. 

“Oh man,” Clint exclaimed, smirk twisting on his face, “You’re really making this easy, Garvey. Can’t say you live up to Ezra’s praise. What in the goddamned wasteland made you think you could rebuild the Minutemen? You can’t even take a punch. Pathetic.” 

As Clint spoke, Preston noticed a blur of movement behind the other man. He knew his eyes must have been playing tricks on him because it looked as if the air vibrated like it sometimes did in highly irradiated areas. Quincy wasn’t one of those places. The only other thing it could be was a-- 

Just as he thought the word _stealth boy_ , the wobble in the air dissipated, and Charlie stood no more than ten feet behind Clint. She slowly raised a finger to her lips in a _shushing_ motion, and readied her weapon to aim. Preston couldn’t keep the relief washing over his face, mouth twitching at the corners. She was alive, and not only that, she’d come to save him once again. Mama Murphy really did hit the nail on the head all those months ago. 

“Why are you smiling,” Clint asked abruptly, lifting his laser rifle, locking it straight in the direction of Preston’s chest. “What’s so fucking funny, huh?”

“Nothing, man,” Preston managed, words slurring, “Nothing at all.” 

At that moment, Charlie unleashed a terrifying barrage of shots into Clint’s armor, damaging the legs so severely that they locked in place, and Clint had to jump out. “What the--” he began, and turned around, to face his attacker. “You little _bitch_.”

He attempted to raise his weapon and aim at her, but before he could get there, she’d pulled her trigger. Preston couldn’t make out where she’d shot Clint, but the man dropped his gun and fell to his knees, before falling to his face. Charlie holstered her pistol, and stared down at the man she’d just killed, expression as flat as he’d ever seen it. 

“I’m not a bitch,” she muttered, shaking her head before setting her gaze on Preston, worry knitting her brows as soon as their eyes met. She rushed over to where he sat, up against the car he’d been thrown into, and knelt down, cupping his face with a gloved hand on either side and turning his head to the left and then the right, clearly examining him for injury. She flipped a switch on her PipBoy, flashing a bright beam of light into each of his eyes. He squinted and shook his head, causing her to giggle, but he could hear the tears and sniffling between laughs. 

“You’re okay,” she assured him, pressing an unexpected kiss to his forehead, “Looks like you might have a concussion, but you’re safe. I’m here.” 

“You’re really scary sometimes, you know that,” he stated, words still stumbling out of his mouth clumsily. 

She laughed nervously and glanced away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry, I just… I’d just watched Clint knock you into this car, and he was about to kill you and I just--.”

“No,” he corrected her, grin spreading across his face, “It’s kinda hot.” 

She snorted and a tear rolled down her cheek, dripping off her chin. “Jesus, you hit your head harder than I thought.” 

“It’s still the truth,” he admitted weakly, vision closing in entirely. The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was her voice calling his name. 

“Preston?”


	2. Quincy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> History is different when it plays out before one's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What is to give light must endure burning.”  
> ― Victor Frankl

**Quincy, September 2287**

An early autumn sunset fell over the splintered buildings and raised walkways that surrounded the tattered homes and market stalls known as the Quincy Settlement. Preston wondered if the sky had always looked like that, or whether the hazy pinks and oranges were yet another lingering effect of the nuclear fallout that had destroyed the Commonwealth some two-hundred years earlier. Even if that was the case, it was comforting to think that the end of the world hadn’t been quite enough to darken the Sun. 

To call Quincy “the most prosperous settlement in the southeast” was doing it a big favor. That its settlers had managed to survive in the harsh, swampy land rife with ‘lurks and ferals long enough to establish sound supply lines with Diamond City and Bunker hill was impressive, but Quincy itself was no thriving center of life. It was just the only place where humanity had managed to establish itself in the region, and as such, it was a big target for raiders and mercs of all sorts, who sought to claim it for themselves.

Preston traveled to the settlement with Colonel Hollis and a small contingent of Minutemen in response to a distress call from the mayor. Apparently a batty, old jet-head had some sort of vision that Gunners, a ruthless pack of cult-like murderers, were plotting to seize Quincy. It was a stretch, in his honest opinion. He’d never been the religious type, and he definitely didn’t believe in psychic visions. It was just a coincidence that the militia had to drive back a small band of the mercenaries less than a day after their arrival. Many of the attackers fled when they were met with resistance; however, a young boy had been shot in the leg. Last Preston heard, he still hadn’t recovered. 

He finished driving a nail into the latest of many wooden boards he’d been using to fortify the settlement walls and stepped back to examine his work, dropping the hammer to the ground by his feet. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing at all. Besides, there wasn’t much else he was qualified to do. He’d never been any good with technology, so wasn’t any help to that mechanic, Sturges, nor was he important enough to sit and strategize with Colonel Hollis, Lieutenant Colonel Richards, and Mayor Jackson.

As far as Preston and anyone else was concerned, the only job he really had left was to walk around with a gun in his hand and wait for reinforcements. Not that he believed reinforcements would actually arrive. Ever since General Becker died, the Minutemen hadn’t been known for being reliable, timely, or helpful. It almost seemed hypocritical to use the name of an historical group named for being ready to help at a minute’s notice. 

“Hey Preston,” chimed a familiar voice, snapping him out of the gloom and doom. He looked up in time to watch Millie jump down from the walkway just above his head. She frowned when she saw his face. “Oof.” 

“You really need to be more careful,” he remarked as she put her hands on her hips. 

“And you need to stop sulking,” she retorted, and handed him a container of purified water “You know, I had no idea when my dad recruited you all those years ago that you’d grow up to be my  _ mother. _ ”

Preston offered her a shrug as he took a long swig of the water. Amelia Hollis was the daughter, and only child of Colonel Ezra Hollis. A handful of years older than Preston, Millie’d been his unofficial mentor since he’d joined up with the Minutemen at seventeen, lost, alone, and hoping to turn his tragedies into something meaningful. Over the years, she had become his closest friend and constant shoulder to lean on, even after she and Richards coupled up. Part of him had always wondered if his feelings for her were mutual. Turned out they were just friends after all. 

“The walls are looking good,” said Millie, tilting her head and looking at his work. 

“I did my best,” he replied, laughing and shaking his head, “Not sure what a bunch of old wood’ll do against laser rifles besides catch fire.” 

“Better for it to catch fire than us.” 

“That’s true.” Preston frowned and surveyed his surroundings as if reinforcements and an armory full of ammunition would miraculously pop up from the rubble. He flinched when Millie grabbed his shoulders and squared him up to face her, eyebrows stern. 

“We have done everything we can, Preston,” she insisted, grip tightening, “You’ve done everything you can.” 

“It’s not enough.” He shook his head and pulled away from her, attempting to walk past her. “These people are counting on us, and all we’ve managed to do so far is get a kid shot.” 

Millie blocked his path and crossed her arms. “At least we showed up! Listen, I know you’ve got these big ideas about what the Minutemen are supposed to be about. You always have. But it’s not the reality. Sometimes all the good guys can do is show up.”

“And that’s just… okay with you? Just showing up?” His voice shook, but he refused to raise it. 

“No. ‘Course not,” she huffed and shifted her weight from one leg to another, “Look, the old man said he got a radio message from some guy. Clint, he said. Apparently they ran together when Becker was still alive. Anyway, he’s coming with some of his people to help us out.” 

“Didn’t Clint leave the Minutemen after Joe Becker died?” Preston narrowed his eyes. He’d heard rumors about Clint, none of them good. 

“Dad thought so, too, but he’s offering help and we’re not exactly in a place to turn him down.” 

“Fair enough,” he sighed, “Look, I’m sorry for being so pessimistic, it’s just…”

“I know you’re taking what happened to that Long boy personally,” Millie stated matter-of-factly, “But that ain’t your fault and you know it.”

Preston had a hard time convincing himself that he wasn’t responsible for Kyle Long’s injuries. He had been so caught up with fortifications, he hadn’t noticed the boy following him around toting an old broom handle like it was a laser musket. Gunners attacked before he could even tell him to run to safety. Damned snipers had gotten up onto the walkway. Several other members of the militia dealt with them while Preston Carried Kyle to safety, but the boy had already lost consciousness and a lot of blood. Marcy’s desperate screams and curses still rang in his ears. He deserved them all, no matter how many times Millie told him he didn’t. 

“I failed to protect him,” he snapped, “And unlike you, I don’t think that showing up is good enough. So, yeah. It’s my fault.” 

“Christ.” She threw her hands up in surrender. “I was just trying to help.”

“I know,” he said, and then paused, a brief, heavy silence hanging in the air between them before he pointed to the pharmacy with his thumb, “I’m going to go check on him.”

Millie nodded, and he turned to walk away, but she called after him. “Hey… Preston?”

“Hmm?” He looked back at her over his shoulder.

“Are we… good?”

He softened at the question and smiled. After all, it wasn’t her he was mad at. “Yeah. We’re good.” 

The Longs’ home was situated just above the pharmacy, which they owned and operated. Preston could already hear shuffling footsteps and Marcy’s muffled, angry voice as he stepped inside, stomach twisted to hell at the thought of facing her again. He knew he needed to, that it was the right thing to do, but damn it if he didn’t want to avoid the painful conversation at all costs. Taking a deep breath, he made his way to the back of the store and up the rickety wooden stairs and knocked on the locked door to their room. 

“Who is it,” snapped Marcy.

Preston flinched. He wasn’t used to people taking that kind of tone with him. People usually liked him, and he didn’t immediately know how to react. “It’s Preston, ma’am,” he said, sticking to his M.O. 

“Great,” she replied emphatically, and with sarcasm that wasn’t lost on him, “Just who we wanted to see. What do you want?”

“I came to check on Kyle. I can come back later if—” He was interrupted by the door swinging open, nearly smacking him in the face. 

Marcy stared him down, scowling from head to toe. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Well, come in.” 

He nodded and walked inside, taking his hat off as he did so. When he was just a boy, his dad taught him that it was disrespectful to enter someone’s home with a hat on; however, the gesture was wasted on Mrs. Long, who had not even seemed to notice. She directed him around the corner of a divider that separated Kyle’s room from his parents’. The boy lay in bed, pale and breathing shallowly. Jun sat beside his son’s bed, elbows on his knees and face in his hands, hair dirty and disheveled. Preston cleared his throat, hoping to not startle the man. 

Jun snapped his head up at the noise, a sad smile twitching on his lips. “I’m glad you stopped by.” 

“Really?” The disbelief slipped out before he could stop it. “I just, well, I figured—”

“He’s been asking to see you,” Marcy explained, tone softening as she moved to sit on the edge of Kyle’s bed, nudging him gently. “Sweetheart, wake up. There’s someone here to see you.”

Kyle stirred, grunting as his eyes flickered open, first glancing between his parents then up at Preston. A wide grin stretched across his face and he rose up to his elbows as best he could. “Mr. Garvey!”

“Hey buddy,” Preston said, smiling back at him and kneeling beside the bed, “How are you feeling?”

The boy pointed to his injured leg and whimpered, “It hurts.” 

Guilt and rage churned in Preston’s chest. From the stain of blood that seeped through Kyle’s sheets, and his lack of color, he was far from being out of the woods. It was not a good state to be in with an expected Gunner ambush. Even if he survived an evacuation from the settlement, it wasn’t clear he’d be able to keep his leg. 

“I know,” Preston managed, “I’m sorry.”

“Daddy says you’re gonna keep us safe from the bad guys if they come back!”

“That’s what we’re here for,” he answered, ignoring Marcy’s unimpressed scoff in the background. 

Before the conversation could continue, commotion had stirred outside, first the loud metallic creaking of a gate being opened, frantic shouting, then a gunshot. Marcy and Jun jumped at the noise, looked at each other, then to Kyle, then to Preston, eyes searching for directions. 

“Stay here,” he directed them as calmly as he could, returning his hat to his head before rushing downstairs and out into the street. 

At the gate, several Minutemen had gathered, weapons ready and aimed at a line of Gunners. In the center stood a tall, burly man with an ugly mustache and hyper-reflective sunglasses. A body lay on the ground at his feet—Mayor Jackson’s body, from the looks of it— and he held the colonel at gunpoint, laser pistol to the temple. Millie fought against Richards’ arms, screaming as he held her back and out of harm's way. Snipers once again lined the roofs and walkways as more Gunners poured in from all directions. How in the hell had the Gunners managed to catch everyone off guard with such a huge contingent?

“Clint,” Hollis shouted, “You dirty, backstabbing son-of-a-bitch. I should have known better than to think you’d actually help us.” 

Clint, once an esteemed militia veteran, now a murderer. A traitor. Preston’s blood boiled, sweaty palms tightening around his musket. No one had seen him yet. He could shoot, he thought, just once before the mercs lining the walls would fire on the other Minutemen and innocent settlers alike. Even if Preston managed to kill Clint with that one shot, it would be a bloodbath.

“You never were too bright Ezra, always letting that bleeding heart of yours get in the way,” he said, finger moving up just slightly to hover over the trigger, “Should have put you out of your misery a long time ago”

“Dad,” Millie cried, breaking away from Richards, and rushing forward. “ Clint, you don’t have to do this.” 

“No, sweetheart,” the man replied, despicable lilt in his voice, “I don’t, but where’s the fun in that?” 

A gunshot rang out, a loud, searing blast of energy that caused Preston to flinch away, and he allowed himself to hope it had just been a warning. But Clint didn’t exactly seem like the generous, warning shot-offering type of guy. No, he and his whole crew were cruel and bloodthirsty, and Preston had just heard someone die. He hadn’t been prepared for it to be Millie, who he saw fall to the ground just as he forced his eyes open. The Lieutenant-Colonel cried out and attempted to rush to her, to catch her, but was met with a laser blast directly to the chest instead, collapsing in the dirt. Panic pounded in his ears so loudly he didn’t even hear the shot that killed Hollis, and time stood still. The settlement fell completely silent, no noise at all but the crunch of Clint’s boasting footsteps as he and his men advanced further into town. 

“Any more of you pathetic maggots want to take your chances?” It was less of a question and more of false promise that anyone could survive. If the people stood their ground, they’d be shot in the chest. If they ran, they’d be shot in the back. Some kind of options those were. 

Without anyone to give orders, without a prayer, the remainder of the militia and settlers scrambled, caged animals trying to escape the slaughter, Gunners stalking after them. Preston stood numbly, watching the chaos from the pharmacy doorway. He wanted to charge into the fray and take out every Gunner bastard he could before the snipers got him, go down with the sinking ship that was the Commonwealth Minutemen. As useless as he was to anyone alive, he figured he’d be even more useless if he died. After all, he’d given Kyle his word that he’d protect him and his family, and that’s what he intended to do.

As he turned to re-enter the pharmacy, he caught a glimpse of two crouching forms clinging to the shadows of the building next door. Sturges, rusty pipe pistol in hand, used his body to shield Mama Murphy from any potential gunfire aimed at them. Preston shouted at the mechanic, just loud enough to get his attention, and motioned for him and the old woman to get inside. Relief washed over Sturges’ face, and he nodded, looked around to make sure they could make a clean break, and rushed past Preston and through the door. 

“Shit fire,” Sturges exclaimed, more to himself than anyone else.. 

“I told you he’d save us, Sturg,” Mama remarked wistfully, high as a goddamn kite, “I saw it.” 

“I know. I heard you all twenty times you said it before, Mama,” he answered, words clipped but not unkind. He glanced up at Preston. “Doped up prophecy or not, I’m sure glad we ran into you, man. Got a plan?”

A plan. Were things not so dire, Preston might have laughed. He couldn’t even put together a single thought, let alone a plan that wasn’t “run” or “don’t die.” He shook his head. Stay here. I’m going to head upstairs, get the Longs, and then we’re all going to get the heck out of Dodge.” 

“What about the others,” Sturges asked, “Everyone’s trying to hightail it.” 

“We’ll grab whoever we find on the way,” he answered somberly, “That’s all we can do right now.” 

“Sounds good, boss.” 

Preston shook off Sturges’ suggestion that he had any sort of authority or leadership over anyone. He was trained and better equipped to fight than the others, sure, but he was no more in control of the situation than anyone else, no less scared. He rushed upstairs to where he’d left the Longs just minutes before. They’d left the door open, and Marcy and Jun jumped up from their seats at Kyle’s bedside as they heard him enter. 

“What’s going on,” Marcy asked, desperation in her voice, “It sounds bad out there?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Preston insisted, keeping his voice as low and calm as possible, “I’m really sorry, but we have to go. Now.” 

“But—” Jun said looking back at Kyle who’d lost consciousness again, “It won’t be safe to move him.” 

“Safer than staying here and getting killed by those bastards outside,” Marcy argued, lifting her son up into her arms and then turning to face Preston. “Thank you for coming back to get us.”

Preston smiled, eyes lingering on Kyle’s face, peaceful despite all of the chaos around them. “It’s what I’m here for.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter written since June or July, I honestly can't remember at this point. Hope you all... enjoy? Let me know what you think! <3


	3. When Freedom Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Museum of Freedom feels like the end of the line until another one of Mama Murphy's visions comes true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”  
> ― Huey P. Newton

**_Concord, October 2287_ **

A loud barrage of knocks thundered against the uncomfortably flimsy wooden door, the millionth barrage of knocks in the past two days. Preston was actually impressed that the barricade continued to hold out as long as it had considering the number of raiders who’d thrown themselves against the door, attempting to ram it open. A few of them stomped away with—most likely— dislocated shoulders and the more forceful negotiation tactics simmered down into hilarious attempts to persuade him and the four remaining Quincy settlers out of their makeshift museum bunker. 

The Museum of Freedom turned out to be a pretty decent spot to hole up, with its remotely controlled security gates and maze-like remnants of hallways. It had managed to keep the raiders busy for most of the night as they attempted to navigate their way in the dark, spending ammo on mannequins conveniently dressed in colonial attire. Under different circumstances, Preston might have found it funny, but he could hardly bring himself to even be relieved, let alone amused. After nearly a month of traveling, and losing far too many people under his care, it was all he could do to not surrender. 

“Come on,” whined one raider with a deep, gravely voice, “We just want to talk to the old broad. Let us in!”

“Not by the hair on our chinny chin chins,” Sturges mumbled absently and under his breath as he fiddled with a locked terminal he’d been trying to hack. Unsuccessfully, so far. 

“ Are you fucking kidding me? Jokes?” Marcy scolded. “There are raiders outside trying to kill us.” 

“Well, it’s a good thing we built our house out of sticks this time,” Preston remarked dryly, walking over to the door that led out to the balcony and cracking it open to take a peek. More raiders littered the streets, hiding behind stacks of crates and rusted old cars and shooting at the museum’s exterior. A laser musket glowed in one of their hands and he closed the door. His last comrade had been shot just as the last of the settlers entered into the museum and now the damned raiders were using the man’s weapon, a gut-wrenching disgrace.

When he turned back around, he found Marcy glowering at him, arms crossed. She wasn’t crying, but he could tell she wanted to, and he could hardly blame her. Despite all their efforts, Kyle hadn’t made it. His leg wound had become infected, and his parents had to bury him in a shallow grave just on the outskirts of Jamaica Plain. Nothing about the situation fair, but the loss of a child in the middle of it all—he couldn’t imagine— but it wasn’t his fault that they were currently without sanctuary. He’d done the best he could to protect everyone, and while he prided himself on patience, Marcy was wearing him thin. He shook his head and turned back to Sturges. 

“Goddammit,” shouted the mechanic at the terminal screen that suddenly went blank. 

“No luck,” Preston asked, watching green text reappear in a crawl across the screen. 

“It locked me out again.” Sturges sighed. “I don’t know if I can crack it.” 

Preston clapped him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you take a break? You’ve been at it all night.”

“Thanks, boss,” he answered and collapsed back into a chair by the desk, rubbing at his eyes. 

Preston would’ve rubbed his own eyes, too, if he thought it would help, but his exhaustion was more than even a decent night’s sleep and hot meal could fix. 

More pounding rang out against the door, this time accompanied by a threat of violence if those inside did not open up. It was not exactly a convincing offer, considering that the raiders would be violent whether he opened the door or not. He pinched the bridge of his nose and attempted to ignore both the obnoxious men at the door and Marcy’s audible complaints about his “pathetic attempts at playing a hero.” It startled him when a gentle pressure fell on his arm and he jumped, opening his eyes to see the old woman smiling up at him. 

“Hey Mama,” he said, still blinking, “Everything okay?”

“We’re going to get out of this,” she remarked emphatically at the wall just behind his head. Her eyes never focused when she was like that. “I saw it. We’re going to find our Sanctuary.”

“Where’d you even find chems in a place like this?”

“Hush, Preston. Just listen,” she said, holding a crooked finger to her mouth. “I saw… an angel in golden ones and a sea of bright, bright blue. Right place, wrong time, to save us! To save you.” 

Those last words were the twist of a knife already lodged deep in his chest, one he’d been pretending wasn’t there, one he’d assumed no one else could see. How had Mama heard his constant, nagging wonder if death would be better than continuing his exhausting, hopeless battle to survive. Had he worn his hopelessness on his back the entire time, or did the old woman really have psychic powers? Skeptical as he was, he couldn’t count her vision out. He didn’t really want to. If some “angel” wanted to conveniently fall from the sky and save their asses, he might actually get religious.

“Well,” he said, “Let’s hope our help shows up soon. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold these raiders off.” 

The old woman’s mouth twisted into a wry grin and she squeezed his arm. “Thank you for helping us, kid. The others can’t see what I’ve seen yet, but they will.”

Preston watched as Mama shuffled back to her seat on the couch and eased down, leaving her words to ring in his head. He wanted to believe in her visions, to have something to put his faith in, but he’d already lost so much. The Commonwealth had robbed him of his family, his role models, his friends, and now his last shred of hope. Even if they managed to escape the museum and make it to safety, what then? He was the last of the Minutemen, and he couldn’t do it all on his own. He wouldn’t. 

Gunshots outside interrupted his thoughts, followed by the low growl and furious bark of a dog. Dogmeat. He had forgotten that he sent the hound out to find help, hoping that the raiders wouldn’t notice a stray mutt wandering around Concord, and they hadn’t, at least not when he’d gone out just an hour or so before. That they shot at him now must mean he had someone with him. Preston glanced over at Mama who smirked, then to the rest of the settlers who wore stunned expressions. Heart pounding, he rushed back to the balcony door, swung it open and stepped outside to investigate.

Some commotion it was, the small cluster of raiders he’d seen before all with their backs toward the museum, and instead aiming their weapons at Dogmeat, who stood protectively in front of a crouching figure dressed in a bright blue vault suit. He could tell little else about this person, other than the coppery red hair that peeked out behind Dogmeat’s fur and that they were armed with nothing but a security baton. He tried not to get ahead of himself and believe that this was the same person Mama had seen in her vision, but his pulse jumped anyway. Personal savior or not, this mysterious stranger was a goner if he didn’t do something and fast.

His hands tightened around his musket as he lifted it, aimed, and turned the crank. If there were ever a time when he wished he had an automatic weapon, this was it. He shot the raiders closest to the figure first, each with a slow, precise blast to deadly areas. Head, chest, ribs, each shot filling his nose with the scent of burning ozone, each coming with a flashbulb memory of Quincy, of Lexington. He kept his breath steady and scanned the area. Once he was reasonably confident it was clear enough for the woman— he could see she was a woman now— to make it inside, he called out to her. 

“Ma’am!” Dogmeat barked in response but the woman looked around from side to side, clearly disoriented and unable to tell where his voice came from, so he shouted again and waved. “Up here.” 

Dogmeat nudged at the woman’s thigh and barked in Preston’s direction until her gaze lifted up to the balcony. He could see the frightened suspicion in her eyes, the doubt that he was anymore trustworthy than those who had their guns pointed at her. Lowering his weapon and raising his hand, he continued. “Listen, I know you’re scared, and you’ve got no reason to trust me, but more of those guys are coming and you need to get inside.” 

The woman looked around her, then to the dog who nudged her again and wagged his tail. Worry churned in his stomach as he noticed more raiders approaching from the outskirts of town. Agitated and desperate, he yelled again. “Come on! I’m trying to help you out. Grab a weapon off of one of those raiders and hurry.” He didn’t like being forceful, or barking orders at anyone, especially not a frightened and confused woman who probably hadn’t factored fighting raiders into her schedule for the day; however, he had no choice. She was going to get herself killed if she stood there any longer.

To his relief, his demand seemed to snap her out of whatever shock she was in and back to reality where she looked up at him and nodded frantically before grabbing a pistol and some ammo off one of the bodies near her feet, and headed inside. He knew he should have warned her about the raiders that were in the museum, but he wasn’t thinking clearly, and it would be easier for her to take out a couple of the goons at a time in the narrow hallways than to survive being surrounded outside. He returned to the room where the others waited expectantly for him to give them a recap. 

“It’s a woman,” he explained, “Looks like she’s from a vault.”

“Oh thank God,” Marcy spat, “Exactly what we needed! An out-of-touch Vault Dweller who doesn’t know shit about surviving out here.” 

Preston clenched his fists, biting his tongue so hard he thought it might bleed. Losing his temper with Marcy wouldn’t do anyone any good, no matter how much he wanted to just explode. Jun sunk down against a desk on the far side of the room, hands in his hair, rocking back and forth, and Sturges hung his head. The only person who seemed to be pleased with the latest turn of events was Mama Murphy, who winked at Preston and leaned back comfortably against the couch cushions. 

The wait was excruciating, each uproar and explosion of gunfire tightening the knots in his abdomen. If he were honest with himself, Marcy was right. The odds of some lady from a vault, of all places, surviving the hostile maze of raiders with nothing but a pistol and a dog were slim. The odds that she might be able to get them safely out of the museum were non-existent. If she made it up to the third floor, it would be pure luck. If she managed to rescue him and the settlers, well, he might have to reconsider his opinion about miracles. Still, the gunshots crept closer and closer, slowly but surely, as he paced around the room. He stopped when the men who’d been terrorizing them just outside the room stirred. 

“Well, well, what do we got here,” asked one of the men, “Are you lost, little g—” 

Whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by a gunshot, and the thud of his body collapsing to the floor rang out past the door. Alarmed, the other guy who’d been outside shouted, “You killed ‘im! You bitch.” 

Another shot rang out, followed by a gargled yelp, and then nothing. There was silence for what felt like an eternity, broken only by the sound of Dogmeat pawing at the door. Preston hurried and moved the barricade of desks and chairs out of the way, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. 

His breath caught at the sight of the young woman standing in the doorway. She looked to be close to his age, with short-cropped, red hair that was in disarray and caked with splattered blood at various stages of drying, along with the rest of her. She was wet with sweat, and stood tall despite the exhaustion in her dark brown eyes. Her gaze locked with his and she scowled.

“I am not a bitch,” she grumbled, placing a hand on her hip. 

Preston flinched, not expecting those to be the first words out of her. Cautiously, and with a grin tugging at a corner of his mouth, he ventured a reply. “I, uh, didn’t say you were, ma’am.” 

“No, but I just wanted it on the record because those…” she trailed off looking back out into the hallway as if the word she was searching for would be there. 

“Raiders?”

“Yeah. Those assholes.” She shook her head and turned to face him again. “They kept calling me a bitch, and that’s just… hurtful.”

“Well,” Preston began, not exactly sure how to bridge the conversation from name-calling to the need to get the hell out of the museum, “I don’t know who you are, but your timing’s impeccable. I’m Preston Garvey. Commonwealth Minutemen.” 

A confused expression crossed the woman’s face, and when he offered her his hand, she glanced between his eyes and his hand tentatively, before shaking it. At the touch, she trembled, and when he moved to pull his hand away her grip tightened, eyes filling with tears. 

“Whoa. Hey,” he said gently, keeping a hold of her hand as he led her over to the chair where Sturges still sat, and motioned for him to get up. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, releasing his hand as she sat down and took a few deep breaths. Then, she smiled up at him. “It’s a long story.” 

“I’d love to hear it.” Preston knelt down so that he wasn’t looming over her and offered her the most reassuring smile he could. “But first, we have to get out of here. It’s not safe.” 

She nodded. “Right.” 

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Charlotte. Charlotte Smart,” she answered and then cleared her throat and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, “But, um, I go by Charlie. You can call me Charlie.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Charlie, and thanks for the help with those raiders.”

“I’m not actually sure how I… I mean I’ve never.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard enough that Preston could hear. 

“What did I tell you? She’s useless.” Marcy laughed derisively in the background, and he snapped his head to glare at her. She rolled her eyes and sat down beside Jun. 

“That’s Marcy,” he explained as he turned back to Charlie, “She’s lost a lot and she’s just angry. That guy by the desk is her husband, Jun. Old Mama Murphy’s over there on the couch, and this is Sturges.” 

“Yo.” Sturges looked up from the terminal where he was hard at work again, and waved, before looking back at the terminal which had gone blank. “Damn it all.” 

“What’s he trying to do,” Charlie asked, eyebrow quirked.

“He’s trying to hack that terminal to open a security gate downstairs. See, we’ve found a crashed vertibird and a suit of old pre-war power armor on the roof but—”

“It’s out of juice,'' Sturges interrupted, much to Preston’s relief. Technology had never been his strong suit, “But, there’s a fusion core downstairs behind that gate. If we could just get the damn thing open, we could use the power armor to rip the minigun off that ‘bird, and the raiders are toast.” 

To Preston’s surprise, Charlie rose out over her seat slowly, and he stood with her, stepping out of her way as she walked over to the terminal. “Can I try?”

“It’s all yours, miss,” Sturges replied, scooting over and leaning against the desk, and Charlie went to work, long fingers clicking rapidly on the keyboard. A gold band glistened on her left hand, and Preston wondered why she was alone. 

“Let’s see,” she mumbled to herself, “I’m not sure if these are the same as the ones my husband used to work on back before— well, just a while back. He taught me a little about how to break into a locked system because I had a bad habit of forgetting my own passwords.” 

A smile flashed across her face, but it wasn’t happy. There was something beneath it, something she seemed to be trying to muscle her way through, as she continued working until finally she blurted, “Ha! There we go. I’m in.”

Sturges jumped up from his lean and turned to peer over Charlie’s shoulder, amazement washing over his face. “Well, I’ll be damned. When we get out of here, you’ve got to teach me how you did that.”

“I can try.” She stepped away from the terminal and collected her pistol from the desk, reloading and cocking it, then she turned to Preston. “I’ll get that fusion… thing… and head to the roof.” 

Caught off guard by her complete shift in confidence from the shaking woman who’d been sitting in the chair just moments before, refusing to let go of his hand, he stammered out, “I… but… okay. Thanks.” 

She ran out of the room, Dogmeat trailing behind her, and Preston had to focus much harder than usual to keep his mouth from hanging open. Just as she was out of earshot, Sturges cackled beside him. “That little lady is something else.” 

“No shit,” Preston agreed, shaking his head, and then looking around the room to everyone else, stopping at Mama Murphy, whose eyes glittered knowingly, “She might get us out of this after all.” 

After just a few minutes of waiting, Charlie burst back through the door, fusion core in her free hand, waving it in the air as she rushed past the settlers to the door that led up to the roof. There was some loud clanking, the whirring sound of power armor starting up and then a clatter as she seemingly tore the minigun from the vertibird. Preston stepped outside on the balcony, and peered over and up at her on the roof. She waved cheerfully, before jumping down into the street and absolutely laying waste to the raiders that flooded toward her. It was messy fighting, and she clearly wasn’t so much aiming as she was, closing her eyes, spinning, and holding down the trigger, but it was effective. He only had to take care of a handful of enemies who managed to climb up to the tops of buildings. 

When Charlie finished clearing up the area, she turned around and waved up to Preston. He laughed and waved back in disbelief, at least for a second until a cold rush of dread fell over him as he noticed the beast surging toward her, claws out, drool leaking past it’s gigantic, sharp teeth. He didn’t have time to say more than, “Charlie. Behind you,” before the deathclaw picked her up, power armor and all, as easily as if she were a rag doll. He watched in horror, gripping at the railing, too far away to get a good shot at the thing.

She struggled with the minigun, pulling the trigger a few times, only for it to shoot a couple of rounds and fizzle out of ammo. She yelped, and tossed the gun at the deathclaw’s nose, which stunned it just enough for her to reach into one of the leather pockets on her belt and pull out what looked to be a frag grenade. Preston panicked. If she threw it at such a close range, she’d be caught up in the blast too. He opened his mouth to shout at her not to do it, but she’d already ripped out the pin with her teeth. Then she leaned back, and tossed the explosive just as the deathclaw opened its mouth. Startled and choking, it threw her to the ground, the armor the only thing protecting her from several broken bones. 

Ten long seconds passed as the giant lizard wheezed and clawed at it’s own throat, long enough for Charlie to rise to her feet, exit the damaged suit, and run for cover behind a nearby barricade the raiders had built. Then there was a sickening explosion, a muffled boom followed by the splattering of deathclaw limbs and flesh all over the street and nearby buildings. Flecks of blood even reached as far as to splatter on Preston’s duster and he frowned— He’d just found the damn thing, and it was already going to have stains on it. Looking up and out at the gory mess, he sighed and muttered to himself. “ I guess that’s one way to do it.” 

By the time he made it back inside, everyone had left the upper floors and congregated downstairs, waiting for their hero to return. Mama wobbled on her feet, and Preston hurried over beside her so that she could grab onto him for stability. “Take it easy, Mama,” he urged, patting her hand she’d looped through his arm, “You okay?”

She squeezed his arm and hissed playfully. “I’m fine, Preston. Quit fussin’.’”

“Someone has to fuss over you,” he teased, guiding her to a cushioned chair that sat against a wall and helping her sit down, “Might as well be me.” 

“Sugar, I’m about fifty years too old for you to be doing all that flirting.”

“It’s not—”

The old woman chuckled and patted his cheek. “I’m just yankin’ your chain.”

Preston let out an embarrassed laugh, and rose just in time to see the doors to the museum creak open, a thin band of light peeking through, and Charlie’s silhouetted figure walking in way too gingerly for someone who’d just gone toe-to-toe with a giant irradiated lizard and won. When she closed the door behind her, the shadows cast over her vanished, revealing her harrowed face. To see her fight, one would have thought her fearless and indestructible, but it must have been terrifying. 

“Well,” she exclaimed as she walked toward the area where the group had congregated, “That sucked.” 

Preston hurried forward without thinking, compelled to greet her, to thank her, to apologize. “That…” he trailed off not knowing what to start with, “That was impressive. I’m glad you’re on our side.” 

“I’m glad I have someone’s side to be on,” she stated kind of ominously. He couldn’t figure out what she meant. “You’re the first people who haven’t tried to kill me since… I got here.” 

“New to these parts then?”

“You could say that.” She laughed, scratching the back of her head and looking down at the floor. 

“ Well, it’s good you got here when you did. I think I mentioned that I’m with the Minutemen earlier?”

“You did. I’ve no idea what that means anymore, but…” She shrugged. 

“It means we protect the people... at a minute’s notice, and—” He dug into one of his pockets and pulled out a pouch of caps, all he had left, and extended it to Charlie— “We pay our debts.” 

Charlie reached out with both hands, placing one atop his and the other beneath the pouch, squeezed and then lowered his arm, smiling and glancing briefly toward the others in the room before bringing her eyes back to Preston. “You don’t have to pay me,” she said.

Alarmed, Preston pulled his arm away from her grasp and returned the caps to his pocket, eyeing her suspiciously. “Why did you help then?”

“Because I could.” She smirked and put a hand on her hip in what was turning out to be a characteristic movement for her. “Or at least I thought I could. The dinosaur was a surprise.” 

He laughed, truly laughed for the first time since before Quincy. “Yeah, it’s not everyday a deathclaw strolls into town.” 

“Deathclaws? That’s what you call those? Huh.” 

“Man, you really aren’t from around here are you?”

“No,” she stated more seriously, glancing back down again and twisting the ring on her left hand. “Definitely not.” 

A heavy silence passed between them, and Preston found himself fidgeting uncomfortably, not exactly certain how to react to genuine kindness and generosity from a stranger. It’d been so long. “You know, you remind me a lot of some of my friends in the Minutemen. They died doing what was right, and now I’m all that’s left.”

“I’m sorry,” she interjected before he could finish his thought, “I kind of know how that feels.” 

“Umm, thanks.” It was the first time anyone had apologized to him since everything started, and she didn’t even know what happened. He straightened his hat. “What I was going to say is that you should come with us. We could really use your help.” 

“Where are you going?” 

Preston tilted his head toward Mama. “Mama Murphy’s been seeing visions of us going to this place called Sanctuary. It’s a rundown old town right now, but she thinks we could build it up again.” 

“Visions,” she asked, looking back at the old woman. 

“She just thinks she has visions,” Marcy chimed in from across the room, “And Preston and Sturges are too nice to tell her she’s just high off her damn gourd. So we end up wandering around based on the ramblings of an old chem addict.” 

“ Hey,” Preston snapped, “If you think you could do better, then by all means—”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Sturges scolded, clearly sick of the hostility, “We’re all on the same side here, so let's settle down. Marcy, do you have a better idea?”

There was a long silence in which Marcy did nothing but cross, uncross her arms, and huff. “Nothing? Okay, then we’re going to this Sanctuary place.” Sturges said after some time and then winked at Preston, a signal that he had the situation under control. Preston nodded his thanks and returned his attention to Charlie once again, who was still deep in conversation.

“Diamond City,” she asked, that pain he’d noticed before surging to the front of her face, “Is he there?” 

“I… it’s not clear, kid, and I’m tired,” Mama answered in that way she always did when she was about to attempt to bum some chems off of someone, “Maybe you bring me some jet later? Maybe I’ll have you some more answers.” 

“Jet? What’s—” 

“Mama,” he interjected, not wanting the old woman to abuse the good graces of a potential ally, or even a friend. “I told you to stop messing with that stuff. It’s gonna kill you.”

“Oh shush, Preston,” Mama grumbled, “We all die someday, might as well help this young lady out.” 

Charlie flashed a grin at him, and then patted Mama on the shoulder, “I wouldn’t want you to do anything dangerous on my account.” 

“Oh, come on, sweetheart. Don’t let Preston charm you into good behavior with that pout of his. Handsome or not, he’s just a worry wart.” 

To his surprise, Charlie actually looked back at him and tilted her head. He darted his eyes away under the scrutiny of her examination. “He’s not pouting,” Charlie remarked matter of factly, “And I’m perfectly capable of good behavior on my own.”

Mama shook her head as Charlie gave her another gentle pat on the shoulder and walked to stand next to Preston and whisper, “I’m assuming Jet’s a drug?”

He blinked a few times, “Do they not have chems where you’re from?”

“I don’t know enough to answer that question.” She laughed and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, before bumping his shoulder, “I’ll explain later… when we get to Sanctuary Hills.” 

“So, does that mean you’re coming with us?” He tried not to let his excitement show too much. 

She nodded. “Definitely.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading y'all! Let me know what you think! :D


	4. Sole Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie tells Preston a long story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare  
> to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.”  
> ― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

_**Sanctuary** _ **_Hills, October 2287_**

The trek out of Concord, and up the road to a place called Sanctuary Hills was largely silent and uneventful. Preston took point, and Charlie offered to hang back in case there were any straggling raiders who decided to follow. He wasn’t so sure that she was in any condition to watch the rear, but he wasn’t about to argue with the woman who’d just turned a deathclaw inside out. It was more than alarming to see the bloody massacre Charlie’s tangle with the deathclaw had caused up close and personal as they passed by. He was just glad she’d survived, and that he didn’t have to fight the damn thing. 

On the way to their hopeful home, Sturges spotted a largely intact Red Rocket on the side of the road, stacked with old tires and filled with useless junk that Sturges would scrape up a use for. Jun and Marcy walked together in somber silence and Mama Murphy hobbled along in the back, arm looped through Charlie’s, whose open hand gripped a 10mm so tightly her knuckles turned white. She had a hell of a poker face, he’d give her that much. 

Nearing the old neighborhood, a statue of a lone guardian stood tall, musket in hand, holding his centuries-old post at the bridge where the American Revolution began. It was almost like some weird omen, Preston thought, observing the Minuteman and then the bridge. Maybe Mama’s visions had some truth to them after all. He did not realize he’d mused out loud until Sturges’ hand clapped him on the back. 

“I don’t know what the heck you’re talkin’ about boss, but I’m glad you’re happy.”

Preston laughed. “Thanks, man.” 

Crossing Old North Bridge into their hopeful home seemed monumental, the group propelled forward by the potential of a place to finally rest. There were more than a handful of homes that still had enough structural integrity to be tidied and boarded up for use as shelters. It was bittersweet to see the remnants of picket fences, lawn furniture, and pink, plastic birds that dotted the landscape. Skeletons of old cars littered spots where garages might have been. Preston imagined what the area might have been like back before the war, pictured neighbors talking to one another from their yards, children playing together in the streets. It was a way of life he knew he’d never get to have. 

Before long, Preston had done a sweep of the entire cul de sac, making sure there wasn’t anything dangerous lurking inside any buildings. All he found were several dead rad roaches and bloatflies, as well as a high-strung Mr. Handy robot that called itself Codsworth. It kept attempting to scrub the rust off the paneling outside one of the homes, muttering something about making sure it was in “tip-top” shape for when its family returned. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the thing, so he just left it to clean aimlessly in hopes that it’d be someone else’s problem later. 

“Hey boss,” Sturges called out to him, waving him overs to where the others had congregated near the mechanic’s makeshift workstation, lamplight flickering on their exhausted faces, “Check out what we found in one of the fridges.”

Preston walked over, catching a glimpse of the round face of Button Gwinnett on a cardboard case of Southie Stouts. “Damn, and here I thought we’d used up all our luck for the day.”

“I’d prefer Beantown,” Marcy said as she brought her bottle to her lips, and Preston caught the briefest flash of a grin wrinkling at the corners of her mouth. 

“C’mon Marcy,” Jun interjected, nudging her shoulder, “You know that’s not true.” 

“I’m a Gwinnett guy, but I’d probably drink anything wet with a kick right about now,” Preston said, grabbing one of the dark brown bottles and examining it more closely. It had been forever since he’d actually gotten to enjoy a drink, long before Qunicy, that was for sure. Just as he placed his hand on the cap to pop it off, there was a bump at the back of his legs. He startled and turned around to see Dogmeat peering up at him expectantly, whining and wagging his tail. Preston knelt down and gave him a scratch behind the ears. “You a Gwinnett guy, too, boy?”

The dog let out a stern bark that sounded like a correction, and then turned toward the house across the street before looking back at him. Following Dogmeat’s instruction, Preston glanced over at the house, where Charlie stood alone, frozen and staring vacantly inside as if she wanted to enter but couldn’t. Without hesitation, he grabbed another bottle and headed toward her

He cleared his throat as he approached to make sure he didn’t startle her. It was neither polite nor smart to spook a lady who was already pretty shaken up. She darted her head toward him, scrubbing at her face as if he wouldn’t notice her tear-stained cheeks and swollen nose. He pretended not to, anyway, instead holding up the bottles in his hands and smiling. “Thought you could use a drink.” 

She perked up at the sight of the drinks, tilting her head and squinting at the label. “Are those--? Oh wow.”

“Yeah,” Preston said, popping the cap off of one of the bottles and handing it to her, “Stouts are harder to come by than the other stuff.”

Charlie shook her head and examined the bottle, running her thumb up and down across the label. “No… it’s just. I’m surprised there are still any left after you know--” she swallowed hard-- “the bombs.”

She sounded harrowed, as if the bombs had just fallen yesterday or something. Maybe she was just harrowed in general. God knew she had every right to be. 

“Me too,” Preston said, opening his own drink and taking a swig, lukewarm and bitter. It hit the spot. “It’s kinda crazy, you know, what survived. 

She took a sip, sad smile at the corners of her mouth. “Like the lawn flamingos? Such a testament to pre-war vanity.”

“Those damn birds,” Preston replied, nodding and laughing. He’d never thought much about the lawn ornaments before, other than thinking they were ridiculous. 

The air between them fell silent as Charlie stared down at her bottle, picking at the label with a polished thumbnail. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then closed it and sighed before glancing over at him. “Can I tell you something? It’s going to sound really weird, but I’m going to lose my shit if I don’t talk to someone.” 

“Is this that ‘long story’ you mentioned before?”

“Yeah.” Charlie walked toward the bright red door to the house in front of them, slightly ajar, knob and hinges specked with rust. She ran her hand along the wooden surface and took a deep breath. “I used to live here. In Sanctuary Hills. In this house.” 

“But,” Preston’s brows drew together, “That’s not possible. This place hasn’t been settled since--”

“Before the bombs fell.” She spun back around to look at him, leaning back against the door frame. “I know. That’s when I lived here.”

“Two-hundred and ten years ago?”

She nodded her head slowly. “2077. I had the perfect life: a good career, the best husband, a beautiful baby boy, and a shiny new Mr. Handy unit that was much less neurotic than the one over there trying to clean the dirt off the ground.” 

He blinked, attempting to figure out where he’d misheard the woman, because if he hadn’t then that would make her over two-hundred years old. That couldn’t be possible, at least not without being a ghoul, although he wouldn’t mind if she could take Codsworth off his hands. 

Charlie frowned. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” 

“No, no,” Preston stammered out quickly, “I believe you, but… how?”

“That might be a better question for Vault-Tec,” she remarked, looking down at her suit, “My husband and I signed up for a spot, just as a precaution. Nobody thought the Chinese military would actually drop those nukes. Not sure if it was arrogance or complacency, but either way, it happened. My family and I were rushed to Vault 111 to shelter. That’s all it was supposed to be: A  _ shelter _ .” 

“I’m guessing it wasn’t just a shelter?”

“No.” She laughed bitterly. “They herded us, like lab rats, into these cryogenic chambers, and locked us in there. Last thing I remembered before waking up was my limbs going numb and my vision going dark.”

“Damn.” Preston was stuck somewhere between horror and amazement. “Did anyone else make it out with you?”

“No.” Her answer was abrupt, eyes welling up visibly and he immediately felt bad for asking. “When I woke up, there were these people in weird lab coats and a man with this scar--” She traced a line with her little finger, vertically from her eyebrow down to her cheek-- “He opened up my husband’s chamber and took my baby. Nate fought, but… they shot him. After that, I think everyone else’s life support failed. A whole damn town, and I’m the only one who survived.”

“I’m… so sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. He knew how it felt, to be a sole survivor of a terrible tragedy, but he couldn’t bring up Quincy, even if it was just to show her he understood. “If there’s anything I can do, or that the Minutemen can do…”

“I think the Minutemen have their own problems at the moment, hmm?” She smirked, eyes twinkling with humor despite the tears. 

Preston looked around and chuckled in exasperation. “Well, considering that I’m the only one left, I’d say yes. We have  _ so _ many problems. That doesn’t change the fact that I owe you.”

Charlie tilted her head back and finished off the rest of her stout, then looked decisively at Preston. “You’re not the only one.”

“Pardon?”

“I never thought I’d get to say this in my lifetime, outside the context of some weird historical play, but... I’m joining the Minutemen.” She tossed her bottle to the ground. “I don’t have any survival skills, I couldn’t shoot dead fish in a barrell, and I’m a bit traumatized, but I figure it’s still better than nothing.” 

“Are you serious?” Preston could barely contain his excitement. He didn’t care if he had to spend months teaching her how to shoot or get by in the Commonwealth. He’d been without help for so long now, he would be glad to not be alone.

“I know it’s hard to believe that anyone could be that bad of a shot, but--”

“No, Charlie,” he interrupted, “Are you serious about joining up?”

Charlie grinned, playfully. “Hell yeah.”

“That’s... well. Let’s just say that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.” 

If Preston were a hugger, and if he’d known her longer than a few hours, he would have embraced the woman. Maybe it wasn’t just the jet. Maybe Mama Murphy was right all along. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted a bit early this week due to upcoming holiday business. :D 
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3


	5. Coast's Clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie doesn't know many things for certain since she woke up in the future, but one thing she does know is that she will never watch someone she loves die again. Not if there's something she can do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.”  
> ― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

**Quincy Ruins, June 2288**

Charlie hadn’t lived in Massachusetts for long when the bombs fell. She and Nate moved up from West Virginia in July of 2077, she’d gotten a position as a postdoctoral fellow in neuropsychology at Medford Memorial Hospital, more than a little excited to make use of her shiny new degree. Shaun was born two months later. After spending most of her life moving from place to place for her education, she was ready to settle down. She never made it that far. 

Needless to say, she’d also never made it down to Quincy. Though, at the moment, she desperately wished she had. 

Preston had this way of looking at her sometimes when he thought she didn’t notice, a lingering glance over his shoulder, a careful observation of her face as if he expected to find some twinkle of pre-war nostalgia in her eyes when entering a new area, memories from a time when the air didn’t reek of sulfur and rotting flesh, and no one had to worry whether or not they’d be run out of their homes and mowed down by mercenary cults. She could offer him no solace. She could barely even look him in the eyes. 

In more comfortable times over the past eight months since they had met, he simply asked her if she was familiar with locations or landmarks. Once, he asked her if she had fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and she informed him that she was two hundred and thirty-seven years old, not well over five hundred. His smile had wrinkled up his eyes that day as he laughed away the embarrassment. Today, there were no stories to be told, no jokes or laughter, just Preston, Charlie, Amelia, a handful of other Minutemen and a large pile of ashes that used to have names. 

“I don’t like this,” Charlie muttered, more to herself than anything. 

She jumped when Preston replied, “Me neither. Not one bit.” 

She hadn’t expected him to hear her, or even pay attention. She could barely see his eyes from under the shadow cast by his hat, but she didn’t need to see to know that he wasn’t okay. He wasn’t one to wear the overwhelming grief he experienced on his face, anyway. The last time they’d visited a Minutemen graveyard, as the Lexington Super Duper Mart had turned out to be, he had to excuse himself from a barricaded room filled with deceased members of the militia. She found him in the feral-corpse littered hallway, green around the gills and sweating. He didn’t have a weak stomach, but reminders of his loss seemed to impact him viscerally. She wondered how he managed to keep his composure now, standing in the place where it all started. 

She was drawn from her thoughts by a thunderous boom that left her ears ringing. She hated that noise. Looking up towards the direction of the blast she saw a small, mushroom-cloud pouring up from a nearby building. A fucking nuke. Hadn’t people learned a damn thing?

Charlie scanned the area for someone holding a Fat Man. She’d been toe-to-toe with wielders of those atrocities enough times to know that she had to act, and fast. Movement on the roof of the nearby church. Just right if the belfry stood a large figure, someone in power armor, with the exact weapon. Without another thought, she charged in his direction. If she got close enough in range she could keep him from firing again. He wouldn’t get another shot. Not if she had anything to do with it. 

She tangled with very few Gunners on her way to the church, thankfully. Most of them were distracted by the small militia that accompanied her. A couple of grunts took shots at her once she made it inside, but they missed and she fired back, hitting each of them once. She didn’t stop to make sure they were incapacitated. There wasn’t time. She needed to get to the roof.

The stairs that led to the belfry were worn and rickety. In less of a panic, she probably would have made her way up them gingerly, avoiding the obvious areas of dry rot. Still, she managed to make it to the top without event. She hoped the luck would stay on her side just a little bit longer. She just needed to take out the Gunner with the Fat Man, or at least distract them long enough to protect the Minutemen. Her Minutemen. 

“Hey,” Charlie shouted, pointing both of her pistols at the man loading a mini nuke into his gun, “Asshole!”

“What the--” he looked up from what he was doing just in time for her ballistic round to strike him between the eyes. 

“Yes,” she said under her breath. How had she gotten to the point where she felt relief at another person’s death? Is this what the Commonwealth made of all its inhabitants? 

She moved in closer to examine the man’s corpse, still standing erect in the power armor shell. A whole lot of good that did him. He was a relatively young man, mid-thirties, and she wondered if he had a family. MacCready had been a Gunner once, he’d told her as they sat drinking whiskey in The Third Rail, bloodstained and bathed in red neon light. It was a gig, a way of making money to support his young son when he had no better options. What if this man had been just like him? Charlie didn’t want to think about it. 

Noting a fully loaded, modified laser pistol on the ground near the dead Gunner, she picked it up, discarding both of the 10mms in her hands. They’d just been spares, and she was out of ammo anyway. She also looted a stimpak and a good chunk of caps before standing up and adjusting her belt. A loud crash of metal and puffing of hydraulics rose up from the street beneath her and she rushed to the edge of the roof, crouching to keep out of view. 

_ Preston. _ A more practical person would have noticed the handlebar mustache wearing the T60 first, the actual source of the commotion, but then again she never claimed to be practical. Why was he alone? Why hadn’t he fallen back to the gates with everyone else, where it was safe? She’d run at a man shooting nukes to protect him and there he was out in the wide open, staring down who could only be the notorious traitor Clint, if the militia hat and sheer aura of son-of-a-bitch were any indication. It was out of character for Preston to be so reckless. Maybe he’d forgotten that was her job. 

The two men spoke, but she was too far away to make out any of the conversation. She’d never seen Preston look so visibly angry or shaken. She needed to get to him before something bad happened, but she needed to be careful. Frantically, she dug through her various pockets looking for one item in particular. Hoping, praying she still had it. 

She smiled and let out a sigh of relief as she pulled the stealth boy from her satchel. That Railroad operative, Deacon, had given it to her as a welcome gift when she’d agreed to help him out. At the time, she’d shrugged it off as a passive aggressive commentary on her lack of discretion. She’d have to thank him next time they crossed paths. 

Charlie rushed back inside the church tower, and down the rickety steps as quickly as she could, flipping open the cap of the stealth boy and pressing the button as she did so. By the time she reached the street, she was completely invisible. Later, when she and Preston were safe and sound back at Sanctuary, she’d ask Sturges how it worked. 

As she crept her way up behind Clint, the man reared back and punched Preston so forcefully it sent him flying into an old junked out Corvega parked nearby. She brought her invisible hand to her invisible mouth to keep herself from gasping audibly. As far as she knew, stealth boys weren’t sound proof. She took some deep steadying breaths, ignoring the burn of tears in her eyes. Now wasn’t the time to lose her shit. 

Moving into position directly behind Clint, she noticed Preston’s eyes on her. He must have noticed the movement in the air. She lowered the stealth field, watching relief wash over his face as she smiled and drew her finger to her lips. Clint would not take him away from her. She wasn’t in a cryochamber this time, and she would not stand helplessly by and watch someone she loved die. Never again. 

“What’s so fucking funny,” she heard him ask Preston who was, despite it all, laughing. 

“Nothing man,” Preston answered, slurring his words in a way that made Charlie uneasy, “Nothing at all.” 

She took that opportunity to fire, aiming her fancy new pistol at the legs of Clint’s power armor. She had noticed that they were damaged as she moved in, knew it wouldn’t take much to disable them. Sure enough, after a half-dozen or so shots, the T60’s leg’s locked up, forcing the man to jump out. He turned in her direction as soon as he did so.

“You little  _ bitch _ ,” he snapped, and christ, if Charlie didn’t hate being called a bitch.

He tried to raise his weapon and fire at her, but she’d already pulled the trigger, launching a blast of burning red energy into his chest, and filling her nostrils with the sterile scent of ozone. She holstered her weapon and hovered over him for a minute, shaking her head. “I’m not a bitch.” 

Charlie then brought her eyes back up to Preston, where he sat leaned up against the car, worry tightening her chest. It wasn’t a good sign that he hadn’t even tried to stand up yet, so unlike him to not make an attempt to brush off his injuries and press forward. She ran over and knelt down in front of him, cupping his face in her hands and turning it to the left, then the right to check for any signs of external bleeding. When she saw nothing more than a couple of superficial scrapes she brought up her pip boy and flashed a bright beam of light into each of his eyes. 

_ Shit _ , she thought, but hid her worry behind a laugh as he flinched and squirmed away from the light. Only one of his pupils had responded to the flash, which meant that he had a concussion at the very least. She refused to entertain the other possibilities at the moment. The tears she had held back just minutes earlier returned to her eyes, and she didn’t fight them this time. 

“You’re okay,” she told him, kissing his forehead reflexively, “Looks like you might have a concussion, but you’re safe. I’m here.” 

He blinked up at her a few times, and she wished she could live up to that version of her that reflected in his eyes. She wished desperately that she could be everything he needed her to be, but with Shaun, and the Institute, and--

“You’re really scary sometimes,” he interrupted her snowballing thoughts, a smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth, “You know that?”

She knew she shouldn’t take any of his concussed statements seriously, but an embarrassed laugh bubbled up from her chest, and she couldn’t hold his gaze. “I’m sorry, I just… I’d just watched Clint knock you into the car, and he was about to kill you, and I just…” 

She trailed off, internally chastising herself for failing to conjure up a coherent response. She wasn’t even the one with the head injury. A gentle tap, and tug at her chin guided her eyes back to Preston. He let his hand linger where it was as his smirk turned into a full-on smile. 

“No,” he said, laughing softly, and shaking his head, “It’s kinda hot.” 

Heat rose to her face and she snorted gracelessly at his compliment. She didn’t know how or what to feel, couldn’t put her finger on why his affection made her so overwhelmingly sad. She shrugged it off and wiped a tear from her face. “Jesus, you hit your head harder than I thought.” 

He didn’t respond, and his eyes fluttered closed instead, hand falling limply from her face. Panic surged up into her chest and she leaned forward to catch him from falling over on his side. 

“Preston,” she called out frantically, as she repositioned herself so that she could ease his head down onto her lap, removing his hat and setting it on the ground by her hip. “Preston?”

Again, no response. “God damnit,” she snapped, slamming the side of her fist into the metal of the car door behind her, body finally giving into the sobs she’d been fighting, sobs that weren’t solely in response to present events. She doubled over, knuckles turning white around the fabric of his duster she clenched in her fists. 

“I’m sorry, Preston,” she whimpered, knowing he couldn’t hear her, knowing it didn’t matter because she would continue to let him down. “I’m so sorry.”

Charlie stiffened at the sound of footsteps, straightening up to see Amelia, her long brown hair flying out of it’s braid, followed by the others who’d accompanied them. She found herself wishing MacCready was there, Codsworth, Sturges, anyone except the contingent of unfamiliar faces peering down at their commanding officer having a temper tantrum. Amelia glanced between Charlie and Preston, pretty blue eyes filled with concern. 

“He’s okay,” Charlie explained, scrubbing tears away from her swollen face, “Just unconscious. He hit his head pretty bad.” 

“What happened?”

“Clint-- at least I think that guy over there’s Clint-- hit Preston so hard he sent him flying into this,” Charlie pointed to the car behind her and watched as Amelia approached the body of the man Charlie’d just killed. 

The woman frowned, shook her head, and kicked the corpse before returning to Charlie’s side. “That’s Clint alright, the bastard.” She offered Charlie a reassuring smile, and then glanced down at Preston, “You got a stimpak on you, General?”

Charlie recalled the one she picked up from the Gunner she’d taken out. She could have slapped herself for not thinking of it sooner. She reached into one of the pouches on her belt and pulled it out, showing it to the other woman. 

“Perfect. Let’s give it to Preston, just in case he’s more banged up than he looks.” She took the syringe from Charlie’s shaking hand gently and removed the cap, and jammed it into Preston’s upper arm. He jerked slightly at the pain, but didn’t stir. Amelia continued speaking, “What do you say we have a couple of the boys move him someplace comfy? There are some abandoned apartments up the street.” 

“Yes.” Charlie nodded. “What about the--”

“Coast’s clear. Any of the Gunners we didn’t kill ran off.” Amelia smiled. “Quincy’s ours again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlie POV! Let me know what you think ;D


	6. Old Appalachia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie's not sure she's cut out for the Commonwealth, but fate thinks otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “By being natural and sincere, one often can create revolutions without having sought them.”  
> ― Christian Dior

_**Outskirts of Concord, December 2287** _

Charlie had always been somewhat of an idealist. She had to be, growing up in bumfuck Appalachia in a family just high enough above the poverty line that the government wasn’t legally required to offer financial assistance. Her dad was an overworked, underpaid line worker in some automotive factory, and despite never once stepping foot in a coal mine, he carried his ancestors’ resentment toward anything and everything “nucular,” as he called it. He’d always pop off with these wild conspiracy theories about atom bombs and the end of times. It seemed laughably prophetic now. 

Her mom had stayed at home, reading books to her and her little brother, and promising them they could change the world if they wanted to. It was those words that kept Charlie going, pushed her towards that Ph.D. that had seemed so monumental back then, so important. Now, as she stomped around an irradiated wasteland, caked in blood and aching from head to toe, she realized how fruitless it had all been. All those years training to help other people only to spend over two centuries in cryostasis and wake up unable to even help herself. 

_ Thank God for Preston.  _ She didn’t know what would have happened to her if she hadn’t almost died trying to help him at Concord. She really had no business in a suit of power armor or holding a minigun and fighting a fifteen-foot tall lizard. Even nearly two months later, she couldn’t come up with a single logical reason why she volunteered so readily. Was she now going to throw her life away just because a friendly face asked her to? She laughed at herself.  _ Probably.  _

Charlie found herself doing a lot of things simply because Preston asked her to. Grueling, difficult tasks like “eating enough,” “staying hydrated,” and “getting a good night’s sleep.” He drove a hard bargain, that Garvey. What did he take her for anyway? Someone stable? 

In the past month, he’d been taking time away from the laundry list of other things he had on his plate, just to teach her some excruciatingly basic Commonwealth survival skills. She’d learned the names of all the things that could possibly kill her: Raiders, Gunners, zombie-like creatures called feral ghouls, supermutants, various types of wildlife threats, and radiation. Everything was irradiated, from the food to the water to the  _ thunderstorms _ . At this rate, she just figured she was either going to die or grow an extra ear on her forehead. It was a tossup. 

She’d also asked Preston to help her learn to protect herself. She didn’t like the idea of guns or violence or any of it, but it was foolish to walk through Hell defenseless. He tried so hard to teach her to shoot one of those god awful laser muskets, but it took too long to ready a shot that she was inevitably going to miss anyway. He had eventually given up on trying, and instead placed a 10mm in her hand. It was nicer than the one she’d used in Concord, with glow sights and an extended mag. Apparently Sturges had fixed it up for her. She was beginning to believe there was nothing that man couldn’t do with a roll of duct tape and half an hour. 

“MS. CHARLOTTE!”

Charlie jumped as Codsworth abruptly hovered in front of her face. She’d almost forgotten the Mr. Handy unit had accompanied her on an assignment for Preston, out in Lexington. Once she’d shown some proficiency with a weapon, he thought it would be good practice for her to take out a “small” band of Raiders who were troubling a nearby settlement. It was not small, and while she dealt with the issue and convinced the Tenpines settlers to throw their lot in with the Minutemen, Codsworth knew she’d not gotten out of the ordeal unscathed. 

“What, Codsworth,” she asked, more annoyed than he deserved. 

“Mum! Oh thank goodness you responded,” the robot exclaimed giddily floating about in front of her, “You have been staring off into nothing for the past hour of our journey despite my efforts to entertain you with conversation.”

She had not noticed him speaking once, well, at least not since he’d mentioned Nate and Shaun when they’d passed by the rusty remains of a playground. Maybe she’d tuned him out after that. “Sorry Codsworth. I have a lot on my mind.” 

“Are you aware that you are bleeding?” 

“What?” Charlie glanced down to the large tear in her vault suit, and the blood pouring from a bullet wound in her thigh. She hadn’t even felt it since she used one of those stimpak syringes. She’d almost forgotten she had it. “ _ Shit. _ ”

“Such language, mum! Hardly befitting of a lady of your stature.” 

“Find me a lady of any stature who doesn’t curse when she’s been shot in the leg,” Charlie quipped, grunting as she sat down to redress the wound, “Do you still have that gauze you picked up at the plant?”

“Yes, of course,” came his quick reply as he produced a bundle of cleanish gauze in one of his metal arms, and handed it to her. 

“Thanks,” Charlie said, taking the cloth from him and beginning to work, wrapping it tightly around her leg. She just needed something to stop the bleeding until they made it back to Sanctuary. They weren’t too far now, maybe a mile or so from the bridge. 

Once she found her amateur wound dressing to be suitable, Charlie continued on back to the settlement, Codsworth prattling on endlessly about the bliss of pre-war life. She understood where he was coming from. That didn’t mean she wanted to hear it.

She stopped suddenly in her tracks when she spotted movement ahead of them, off to the side of the dirt road. It looked like a man in raider leathers, digging for something. 

“What is it, Ms. Charlotte,” Codsworth asked loudly and without an ounce of tact. 

Charlie shushed him, but it was too late, the man had already heard them, rising to his feet and moving his hand to draw his weapon. She didn’t let him have the chance, firing several rounds into his chest before he could. She hated that she was getting good at that. 

She approached the body, prone and lifeless, and knelt down, beginning to rifle through his pockets for anything useful: ammo, stimpaks,  _ caps _ . Yes,  _ caps _ . If anyone had told her that in the future the formal currency would be Nuka Cola bottle caps, she wouldn’t have tossed so many of them in the recycling bin. 

It wasn’t until she looked up that she noticed that there was another body, a young woman lying in a shallow grave also donning the signature raider attire. Her arms were crossed ceremoniously across her chest, hubflowers scattered across and around her body. Charlie looked down at the man she’d just killed and remembered that he had been digging. 

She felt sick. In her mind, she conjured an entire tragic scene in which a poor, mourning raider had simply been trying to bury a loved one and was startled by the obnoxious shouting British robot. When he reached for his gun, just a reflex, he’d been shot in the chest by some cagey redhead with an itchy trigger finger. If she’d only paid more attention, she might have noticed sooner and she and Codsworth could have taken a wider arc around the man. He wouldn’t have had to die. 

Pocketing her looted items, she holstered her gun and bent down to pick up the shovel, starting first by filling in the grave of the lady raider. It was the least she could do. 

“Pardon me, Ms. Charlotte,” Codsworth asked, attempting to be gentle, “What  _ are _ you doing?” 

She sniffed her nose, fighting back the tears she wanted to cry, and pointed the shovel at the woman. “He was just trying to bury her.” 

Charlie swore she could hear the gears in Codsworth’s massive metal head clicking and smoking as he tried to make sense of her behavior. After a moment, he spoke. “Need I remind you that these scoundrels would have murdered us on sight?” 

She shook her head and stuck the shovel into the dirt. “Doesn’t matter.” 

As she worked, her memory was flooded with painful, frozen flashes from the vault. Images of the callous man who killed Nate and stole her baby, of Nate’s stiff, frozen body that still lay in the cryochamber, perfectly preserved with the exception of the fatal gunshot wound in his chest. Charlie had opened the chamber, hoping she could save him, or at the very least say goodbye, but he was already gone. She’d slipped the wedding ring from his finger and left him there, entombed along with the rest of her neighbors who unwittingly signed themselves up for a sick science project. When Preston learned what had happened in 111, he offered to help her lay everyone to rest properly, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t stomach the idea of walking back into that frozen hell. 

She could, however, offer some absolution to this Raider. 

“I’m going to bury him next to her,” she announced, looking at Codsworth before moving over several feet and beginning to dig a new plot.

The robot protested with an exasperated huff. “I applaud your sentimentality, mum, but it is getting quite late. At this rate it will be completely dark before we return to Sanctuary Hills. 

“If you want to go on ahead, you can,” Charlie said with a dismissive wave up the road, “Tell Preston I’ll be along shortly.”  “Perish the thought,” Codsworth retorted, properly offended. “I will not abandon you to the wasteland at night. Just… do please hurry.” 

Charlie worked as fast as she could, but her body was weary from her days of journeying and fighting, so digging and filling in the grave had taken longer than it should have. When she finally finished, the clock on her PipBoy read “23:00,” and the sky was completely dark, well except for the stars. They, at least, had survived the apocalypse. 

It was after midnight before Charlie hobbled across the bridge and into Sanctuary Hills, Codsworth zooming past her, a cacophony of buzzing and whirring and shouting for Preston. At this rate he was going to wake up the entire settlement. She managed to make it over to the home where Sturges had set up his workshop, and flopped herself down on the concrete with a grunt. The effects of the stimpak had worn off, and with the bullet still lodged firmly in her leg, it hadn’t healed entirely and it throbbed like a bitch. 

There was a hurried rustle of footsteps, accompanied by Codsworth’s voice complaining about how she’d “foolishly buried some raiders against all good judgement.” If anyone needed a chill pill, it was that robot. 

“Thank you for taking care of her, Codsworth,” Preston said, a gentle laugh falling off the ends of his words, “I’ll handle it from here.”

“You’re most welcome, Mr. Garvey. I apologize for my mistress’ recklessness.” His words were pointed and Charlie couldn’t believe she was being tattled on by her own Mr. Handy. He zoomed off to busy himself with the fruitless task of trying to restore their old home. 

Preston shook his head, and continued to laugh as he approached Charlie, “Man, that machine is something else.” 

“No joke,” came Charlie’s weak reply, as she attempted to adjust herself to sit more comfortably. 

“Whoa,” Preston exclaimed and rushed to her side. “You okay?

He hadn’t noticed the wound, and for whatever reason Charlie didn’t want him to. “Yeah. I’m fine.” 

He frowned, warm brown eyes flicking down to the blood seeping through the gauze on her leg, and then looked back up at her. He smiled, but she could tell he was worried. “That’s funny, ‘cause you don’t look too fine.”

“I beg your pardon,” she bantered. Deflection. She couldn’t stand the way his concerned expression made her feel. “I know I’m not a supermodel or anything but--”

“Charlie.” 

She faltered under his gaze, tears immediately bubbling up in her eyes. She took a deep breath and fought them back before speaking. “There were more Raiders than we thought. Codsworth and I got overwhelmed and I got shot in the leg, but I’m fine. People get shot around here all the time, right?”

“We try to avoid getting shot,” he remarked, his exasperation not quite as shrill as Codsworth’s, “How many raiders were there?”

“Fifteen, maybe twenty.” 

“Jesus.” He rose to his feet and walked over to the metal cabinets just past one of the workbenches. He knelt and opened one of the doors, reaching far back inside. He emerged with a full fifth of Old Appalachia and a medical kit that was, like everything else in the world, held together by duct tape. He returned to his previous position at Charlie’ side and sat down making an almost concerted effort to make eye contact. “You know I wouldn’t have sent you out by yourself if I’d--”

“This isn’t your fault, Preston.” She lay a hand on his arm, and offered him a smile. “If anything it’s mine for rolling in the front entrance, guns blazing.”

He laughed. “Man, you’ve got to be more careful.”

“No promises.” Charlie lifted her hand from his arm and pointed to the bottle of whiskey. “What’s that for?” 

“You,” Preston answered, picking it up and handing it to her, “We have to get this bullet out of you before it gets infected, and you’re going to want something to dull the pain. So, start drinking.” 

“Say no more.” Popping open the bottle, she kicked back a long, burning swig. The whiskey tasted like home and two-hundred years ago. She watched as he opened up the medical kit and dug through the items inside. “Have you ever done this before?” 

“What? Dug out a bullet,” he asked, bitter smirk on his lips, “Yeah. More times than I would have liked. Like you said, people get shot around here all the time.” 

Charlie took another drink and swallowed hard, the alcohol not working fast enough to keep her pulse from jumping at the sight of metal tweezers and rubbing alcohol. “How bad does it hurt?” 

Preston laughed again, glancing over at her this time. “Bad.”

“Well… that’s comforting.” 

“I’m just being honest,” he explained, positioning himself so that he had a good look at her affected leg. He took his gloves off and looked up at her, “May I?”   
  
She nodded nervously, and watched as he unwound the bandage and cut away the remaining pieces of vault suit. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the injury until now, and she was thankful that the bullet seemed to be of a small caliber, like those that turrets fired, and wasn’t lodged too deeply. Under the bright lamplight, she could see it’s dull metal reflection. Preston sighed in relief, most likely noticing the same thing. 

That it would hurt “bad” had been an honest understatement. Even after several shots worth of whiskey, the sharp burning pain of alcohol and tweezers pulling the bullet from her thigh was enough to make her light headed. Even Preston’s gentleness couldn’t spare her that much, and she squirmed and held her breath just to keep from screaming and waking up the others. When it was all said and done, she was trembling, out of breath, and sobbing like a child. 

“Congratulations,” Preston said softly as he began to dress the now clean wound, “You survived your first Commonwealth surgery.” 

Charlie let out a weary laugh and let her head fall back against the wall behind her, looking up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused. “Thanks, doc.” 

“Don’t mention it.” 

There was a long pause in which she heard him inhale as if he were going to say something, and then exhale as if he thought better of it. She brought her eyes down to him, effects of the alcohol really hitting her, along with the endorphin high. “Something on your mind?”

He stopped what he was doing to meet her gaze. “Why’d you go to all that trouble to bury those raiders?”

“I…” She began, but hesitated, worried that he’d disapprove of her compassion for members of a group that’d terrorized him for days on end at Concord, who killed some of his friends. “I thought it was the right thing to do. When we walked up on him he was in the middle of burying a comrade. He’d spread flowers over her and everything…”

She choked on the last words and trailed off, but Preston seemed to understand, as he nodded and went back to dressing her wound.

“I feel sorry for them sometimes too,” he admitted, as he tied a neat knot in the bandage, “They might be messed up, but they’re still people.”

“Right.” Charlie nodded. 

“You’re a good person,” he stated, eyes fixing on hers. “I’m… I’m glad you decided to stick around.” 

Her face became hot. It must have been the whiskey finally getting to her, she told herself. After all, it wouldn’t make sense for her to get all flustered over a compliment. She carelessly let her hand fall on his arm again. “Me too.”

* * *

Charlie awoke the next day, more afternoon than morning, tucked neatly into a bed that she could scarcely remember crawling into. In fact, everything from the time Preston had finished dressing her wound was blurry and she made a mental note to avoid the Old Appalachia from now on, or at least to refrain from drinking half a fifth in one sitting. She crawled out from beneath the thin blanket and sat up, leg aching more than it had since she’d gotten shot.  _ Damn.  _

Glancing down, she noticed she was wearing a pair of faded jeans that were too short for her and an old white tee that exposed her navel when she raised her arms to stretch and yawn. They were not her clothes, and she’d no idea whose clothes they were, or how she got out of her vault suit and into them. She snorted out a laugh at the thought of poor Preston fumbling around in the dark trying to help her change. She doubted that’s what happened, but her memory was too fuzzy to say it hadn’t. 

Across the room, folded neatly atop her dresser was a familiar blue and yellow fabric, and she hopped up-- too quickly, wincing at the pain in her leg-- and limped over to take a look. Picking it up and unfolding it, it took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t her whole vault suit anymore, missing an entire bottom half, and split open down the front. She also noticed that there were neatly stitched seams along the edges. A jacket? Someone had gone to the effort of making a jacket from her vault suit and she didn’t even know who to thank. 

She slipped one arm in and then the other. It fit like a glove, a much more comfortable, less skin-tight glove than it had previously. A quiet knock on the doorframe nearby drew Charlie’s attention and she darted her head up to see Marcy standing in the doorway, smirk in place of her signature scowl. Suddenly, Charlie remembered. 

“I’m glad it fits,” Marcy said as she looked Charlie up and down. Preston had woken the other woman up the night before to ask if she had anything Charlie could wear. Marcy had cursed and complained, but ended up shooing him away and helped her get changed and into bed. Apparently she was also the culprit behind Charlie’s new jacket. “Couldn’t salvage the whole thing.”

“You did this,” Charlie asked, examining the sleeves. 

“Yep,” Marcy stated, looking down at the ground as if she was embarrassed, “Couldn’t get back to sleep after Garvey woke me up, and figured it might be good to have. Considering none of my clothes are quite long enough for your beanpole ass.” 

Charlie laughed, and tugged at the bottom of the t-shirt. “Thanks, Marcy.” 

“Yeah, well don’t get used to it. I still think you’re useless,” Marcy retorted with a huff, but it was clear she didn’t mean what she said. “And I want my clothes back as soon as you find something else to wear.”

Charlie nodded, and Marcy turned to walk away, but stopped and pivoted back around on her heel, pointing an index finger at her. “Mama’s been waiting for you to wake up. She found some Jet this morning and is off her rocker talking about some bright glowing heart shit. Just a heads up.” 

Before Charlie could even say her thanks, Marcy was gone. Turning her attention back to herself, she realized she had no clue where she’d left her PipBoy. She scanned the room, and saw it sat on the floor near her boots. Picking it up and examining it for damage, she fastened it to her wrist and then slipped on her boots before heading out into the hallway. 

It was a bit disorienting at first. She wasn’t in the place where she normally slept, instead she stood in the house that had become the common area for all of the settlers. She must’ve been too woozy and injured to make it farther into the cul de sac. She turned to her left and spied Mama Murphy in the open living room, sitting in her specially crafted chair, feet dangling happily just a few inches from the ground. 

“Hey kid,” she hollered, motioning for Charlie to come closer, and Charlie obliged, secretly hoping that her doped up insight would give more answers about where Shaun had been taken. 

“Mornin’ Mama,” Charlie answered and made her tedious way over to the old woman and sat down on the sofa near her. 

“The Sight,” Mama croned, “It’s shown me more about your boy, your sweet boy.” 

Charlie winced, unsure if she wanted to know now, but leaned forward and took the old woman’s outstretched, weathered hand. “What is it,” she pleaded. 

Just as Marcy said, Mama Murphy recited a prophecy about Diamond City, and people with chained up hearts refusing to provide Charlie with answers about her son’s whereabouts. With the exception of one. One heart that would lead her way, “so bright against the dark alleys it walks.” It didn’t make sense, but she’d never been to Diamond City, didn’t have enough information to even begin to decipher it. 

“What does that mean,” she asked clumsily

Mama smiled, and shook her head. “Beats me, Kid. I only know what the Sight shows me. Maybe you get me some mentats, maybe I--”

“Now, Mama,” grumbled a familiar voice nearby, Charlie followed the old woman’s gaze to where it had been preemptively fixed on the door Sturges had just entered, face covered with smudges of oil, “You know Ms. Charlie’s not gonna fall for any of that nonsense.”

She shrugged. “Meh, you never know, Sturge. Seems like she wants to find her boy.” 

“Not sure the boss would like it too much if he knew you were abusin’ her good graces,” Sturges scolded her playfully as he popped open a bottle of Nuka Cola, and sat the cap in a pile with others on the counter.

“Preston's not my boss,” Mama scoffed, and then turned back to Charlie, “He’s waiting for you though, kid.” 

“Preston?” Charlie asked, taken aback by the sudden change in topic. “Me? Why?

Mama and Sturges exchanged a glance before Sturges spoke up. “Don’t really know to be honest. He doesn’t really say much about how he’s feelin’, but he’s been worried ever since you left.”

“He sees your promise,” Mama chimed in, “He sees what I see.”

* * *

Even with the analgesic effects of a newly injected stimpak, walking the length of the neighborhood had proven to be a slow, awkward process for Charlie. Her leg was weak, throbbing, and numb, but at least it still worked. At least she was still alive. 

The more time she had to think about her escapade at Corvega, the more she realized how she’d survived on nothing but pure, unadulterated luck. She’d seen it in Preston’s eyes the night before, his bewilderment that she’d managed to take down a raider gang of that size. She’d also seen his guilt, as if he intended to blame himself for something that had not happened. For all she knew of him, that was normal. Whatever had happened before she ran into him and the others in Concord really did a number on the guy. 

Charlie heard him before she saw him, humming and making an effort to tune a two hundred year-old guitar. A smile twitched on her lips, heart warming at the sight of him sat on a rusty patio chair, surrounded by an audience of lawn flamingos. He had his hat off and laying on the table. In her two months of knowing him, she’d never seen him so relaxed. 

“Your G’s a little sharp there Garvey,” she called out to him playfully as she made her way over and sat down in the chair across from him, propping her good leg up on the table. He didn’t flinch or show any other signs of surprise at her approach, and continued to fiddle with the guitar. 

“I know,” he answered, tearing his eyes away from the instrument to look up at her, “I can’t get the damn thing to cooperate.” 

“It  _ is _ at least a couple of centuries old.” 

He sat the guitar down and turned to face her more squarely. It was the first time she could remember getting a good look at him with his hat off. Objectively, of course, he was handsome, with soft features and a smile that he definitely knew how to use to his benefit. Preston was nice. He wasn’t naive. How could he have been, growing up in a world like the one she’d woken up in? The scar that ran from temple to cheekbone on the left side of his face was more prominent than it had seemed before, masked in shadows. It looked like an old wound, and she wondered how he’d gotten it. 

“Well,” he said, amusement plain on his face, “Being a couple centuries old hasn’t stopped you.” 

“It certainly tried,” she replied, ignoring the knots in her stomach and back of her mind telling her it might have been better if it  _ had _ stopped her. “Damn near got the better of me at that plant.” 

Preston nodded and let out a breath. “About that… how are you feeling?” 

Charlie looked down at her injured leg and then back up at him. “Like shit,” she stated, “But I suppose that’s better than the alternative.” 

“That’s for sure,” he said, sort of absentmindedly, gaze seeming unfocused and off in the distance. There was a long, heavy pause before he spoke again. “I don’t think I ever got around to saying thank you last night. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for us since Concord. Without your help...well, I’m not sure we would have made it.” 

“I…”Charlie began, but trailed off, “You’re welcome, Preston.” 

There was another pause and he leaned forward and grabbed his hat, tracing his fingers across the brim. “I know that I told you I’m one of the last Minutemen, but I don’t think I ever mentioned how it ended up that way.” 

She shrugged. “I figured you would tell me when you were ready to talk about it.” 

“I’ve started calling it the Quincy Massacre,” he said somberly.

“Quincy. That’s where you and the others are from, right?”

“That’s right,” he answered, “Sturges, Mama Murphy, and the Longs all lived in Quincy when the Minutemen got a call for help dealing with some Gunners who’d been scouting the area. I went with Colonel Hollis, my commanding officer at the time, and several others to answer the call. It all went downhill after that.”

Unsteadily, Preston opened up to her, explaining how his contingent had been the only to arrive, and their numbers were too few to handle an assault by the much more heavily armed Gunners. Colonel Hollis had called for help, only for a traitorous Minutemen veteran named Clint to show up and lead the Gunners right through the gates. Preston told her how he had to watch settlers and his own comrades die, helpless and running through the streets. He’d made a knee jerk decision to evacuate, and take as many survivors with him as he could along the way. Apparently, that wasn’t where the trouble had ended though. He and his group traveled for over a month without finding anywhere safe to settle, facing disaster after disaster until finally getting trapped up in the museum at Concord. 

The story was heartbreaking, but to watch Preston tell it was even more so. Charlie could tell that he blamed himself for each and every loss that happened under his leadership. He wore his guilt all over his face. 

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said softly, “And I’m glad that I showed up when I did, although I really have no idea how I managed to do… all of that.” 

“It’s almost like it’s fate... or something,” he muttered. His words were followed by an embarrassed laugh and a shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe his own mouth. “Sorry. I’ve been spending too much time around Mama.” 

“Hey.” Charlie laughed, and slid her leg off the table, leaning forward to pat his shoulder reassuringly. “Hope’s addictive. Just like the chems.” 

Preston sighed. “Damn it if that’s not the truth.” 

“Also, I think the old loon might be onto something,” she added, tapping a finger to her temple, “The only reason I limped out to this end of the settlement to see you was because Mama said you wanted to talk to me, something about you seeing my promise?”

“Well I’ll be damned,” he said appearing genuinely surprised, as if Mama Murphy’s clairvoyance was something new, “She’s out here stealing all of my thunder.”

The way he looked at her, as if she held the entirety of his hope in her trembling hands, made her shift uncomfortably. The weight of Mama Murphy’s words now settled on her shoulders like a lead blanket. She had never been one to believe in coincidences, but it was hard to accept that any of this was her destiny. 

She cleared her throat, attempting to be nonchalant. “So, what’s this promise of mine everyone is so certain of?” 

“The Commonwealth desperately needs the Minutemen,” Preston explained, “Now more than ever, and I plan to rebuild them stronger and more organized, without all of the petty squabbles and infighting that have plagued our history.”

“Sounds like you just need to find a good leader,” Charlie remarked, feeling helpful.

Preston eyed her intently and she suddenly regretted her words. “Exactly,” he said with a grin. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she protested, waving her hands in front of her in a panic, “You’re not suggesting that  _ I _ should lead the Minutemen, are you?”

“I am.” 

“On what qualifications?” She was nearly shrieking. “I know next to nothing about the organization, it’s history. I can barely hold my own in a fight. I--”

“Charlie,” Preston remarked, rather directly, “The Minutemen aren’t an army. We’re citizen soldiers, people of the Commonwealth banded together to protect ourselves and decide our own futures. We fell apart because our leadership forgot what we stood for, but you could bring us back together, bring the whole Commonwealth together.”

“Why me?” Charlie was flattered at his faith in her but so confused. “Why not you, or anyone else?” 

“You helped us at Concord and every day since, without anything in it for you,” he explained, “You had your own problems to deal with and you helped us anyway. Hell, you even won Marcy over. That kind of compassion and selflessness has been in short supply around here for a long time.” 

“Preston, I am flattered by all of this, but I’m not sure I can take on that kind of responsibility right now.”

“Listen,” he said, offering her a reassuring smile, “If you really don’t feel like you’re up to it, I’m not going to twist your arm. I get that it’s hard to deal with other people’s problems when you’ve got your own.”

Charlie pondered for a moment, and asked, “What would I have to do?”

“Just what you’ve been doing,” he answered as if it were obvious as day, “Help people. Recruit. Spread hope. And I’ll be behind you every step of the way.” 

She couldn’t deny that it was tempting. As much of a mess as she was herself, she was compelled to help others. If anything, it could give her something to focus on, a sense of purpose, a way to use her skill set. She brought her eyes up to meet his, chased away the nagging doubts in her head, and nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.” 

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be.” 

“Well, the leader of the Minutemen has always held the title of General, and since I’m the last of the Minutemen, there’s no one here to argue with me when I say it belongs to you now.” 

“So I’m General Smart now?” Charlie laughed at the complete absurdity of the situation. Leading a bunch of neo-colonials to resettle Massachusetts wasn’t exactly how she pictured her life turning out. “Does that mean I get a cute little hat?” 

Preston returned her laughter, relief washing over his face at her decision. “If you want one,  _ General,  _ then absolutely.”

Perhaps her mother had been right all of those years ago. Maybe she really could change the world. 


	7. Jewel of the Commonwealth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Preston make the most of their time in Diamond City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.”  
> ― Abbie Hoffman

**Diamond City, January 2287**

Charlie sat uncomfortably, poorly supported by the worn, flattened cushions of the dingy, yellow couch beneath her. It wasn’t the various questionable stains in the fabric that caused her to sit stiffly, hands in her lap, twisting at her wedding ring with her thumb. In fact, as far as couches went, she’d seen much worse in the Commonwealth. She simply hadn’t expected to find a lead on Shaun so quickly, nor had she been prepared to spill her guts to some nosy reporter in order to follow that lead. 

“You don’t have to talk to her, you know,” Preston muttered at her side. He’d declined the offer of a place to sit, and instead leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. “Diamond City’s a big place. I’m sure someone else knows something.” 

Charlie shook her head. She wanted answers more than she wanted confidentiality, and after walking around the repurposed baseball stadium for an hour, being blown off and scoffed at by everyone she’d approached with questions about her missing son, she’d considered Piper’s offer. At least she seemed like she meant well. 

They’d run into the journalist at the “city” gates, bickering with the security officer on the radio who refused to let her inside. She’d quickly roped Charlie and Preston into the conflict, using their arrival as a way to get the guard to open up. After all, how could he possibly refuse to open the gates to guests on account of her presence? Ultimately he’d opened up, and the mayor, a pompous man named McDonough— who looked like every bit of a pre-Nuclear Revolution oil tycoon— was waiting to greet them all. 

According to him, Piper had stirred up a fuss with one of her articles, throwing suspicion at McDonough about his lack of concern over person’s mysteriously missing from Diamond City, as well as his possible ties to something called “the Institute.” He’d hilariously called her a “muckraker” and apologized that Charlie and Preston had gotten dragged into her “little scheme.” It was all Charlie could do to keep from laughing as she told him that freedom of the press was important and watched him stomp away. 

Piper had thanked them for their help, inquired as to why they’d come to town, and Charlie made the mistake of mentioning her missing son. This sort of thing was right up Piper’s alley as far as journalistic intrigue and investigation went, and she’d jumped at the opportunity to offer her assistance in return for an interview. Charlie declined at the time, but now she felt like she didn’t have many options. Not even Mama Murphy’s vision offered her the insight she’d hoped for. 

“So, Blue,” Piper announced as she returned from upstairs with a notepad in one hand and two Nuka Cola bottles in the other. She handed one of them to Preston and the other to Charlie. “I’m really glad you decided to stop by. I know I was a little pushy at the gate. I just—”

“You actually care about this stuff, don’t you,” Charlie asked with a smile, opening her Nuka Cola and sticking the cap in her pocket. 

“Somebody has to,” Piper answered, “People go missing all the time in Diamond City, the Commonwealth, and everyone just turns a blind eye. I’m hoping that your story will wake them up.” 

“Well,” Charlie began, interrupting herself to take a drink, “What do you want to know?”

Charlie spent the next hour or so answering Piper’s questions, starting with the basic items that most Commonwealth inhabitants would want to know about a vault-dweller. Unfortunately, Charlie couldn’t provide those answers, as she had never _ dwelled _ in a vault. She’d lived in a house, spent two-hundred plus years as a popsicle, and woke up in an irradiated wasteland. Of course, Piper found that response to be even more intriguing, and she’d pressed Charlie for information about what it was like before the war, what happened to her family, why she was in Diamond City, and ultimately if she believed the Institute was involved. 

Finally, she’d asked Charlie to leave the readers with some words of wisdom, something she did not feel particularly equipped to do. She glanced up and over at Preston, whose eyes were already on her. He’d been listening quietly to the interview the entire time, heard her talk about her life before the war in details she’d yet to give to him. She’d talked about how much better everything was before the bombs fell, how she’d give anything to go back. She’d been honest, but as she saw his somber expression, the furrow in his brow, she wished she’d shared those truths with him more gently. 

“If there’s anything I think the people of the Commonwealth should know,” Charlie said, letting her eyes linger on Preston before turning back to Piper, “It’s that they shouldn’t give up hope. When I watched those bombs drop, I just knew that it was the end of the world, and to wake up and see that people are still out here not only surviving, but rebuilding, and trying to make the Commonwealth a better place… it’s pretty inspiring. It gives me hope in humanity.” 

It was dark by the time Charlie and Preston stepped back out into the marketplace, sent away by Piper with new information. Admitting that she had nothing but hunches about the abductions, she told them that they should seek out some private detective named Nick Valentine, who had an office in the city. Charlie tried not to get her hopes up at the mention of the “tacky little neon heart signs” above his office door. As right as Mama Murphy typically was, Charlie preferred to expect the worst these days, so that when she was wrong, it was a pleasant surprise rather than devastation. 

Though the sun had set, Diamond City still bustled with life, citizens buzzing around, chatting with one another, and making purchases at the vendors set up in the square. It was a collage of juxtaposed pieces of rusted metal and wood built in the middle of the field and grafted up into the stands, an impressive feat of human ingenuity and creativity decorated with neon lights. Charlie admired that the human race had found ways to press on in the face of destruction. She was less excited about the prospect of attempting to find Mr. Valentine’s office in all the chaos, of pushing past and around people who’d been rude to her just hours earlier. She’d never been prone to claustrophobia before her time in the vault, and yet panic seized her gut and grappled with her chest at the thought.

“Charlie,” Preston asked, voice a thousand miles away as he lay a hand on her shoulder, “You good?”

He wore the expression of someone who’d spent enough time fighting his own demons to realize that she needed a hand with hers, and Charlie nodded in response. “Yeah. I am now.”

With her newfound sense of clarity she moved to take a step out into the square, toward the far corner where she could see a path to some alleyways that circled the market. Preston’s hand slid from her shoulder only to catch her hand and stop her in her tracks. Surprised, she snapped around to look at him, unsure what to make of the gesture.

“What,” she asked, looking around to make sure she hadn’t overlooked something obvious, like a mutant hound standing in the middle of the ballpark, ferals pouring out of windows, or even one of those annoying eyebots that blared advertisements for companies that no longer existed. After all, Charlie had already bumped face first into one of those things because she wasn’t paying attention. Maybe Preston was just trying to save her another bout of bruised ego and busted lip.

“Where are you going,” he asked, raising his eyebrows expectantly. 

“To find this Valentine person,” she answered excitedly, tugging at his hand that still held onto hers, “C’mon.” 

Preston shook his head and laughed quietly. “I know you’re itching to talk to the guy, but it’s getting late. I’m sure his office is closed by now.”

“Oh,” she replied, bringing up her PipBoy to check the time and feeling rather ridiculous when it said 20:00, “Right.” 

“Besides, it’s been a really long day,” he said, “I think we could both stand to take the night off.” 

The prospect of an evening in the city with Preston, free of her commitments for just a few hours, enticed her more than she was willing to vocally admit, and instead she replied with a sigh and, “That’s fair.” 

“So,” he began after a moment, a smile forming on his lips as he gave her hand a squeeze before letting go. “You hungry?”

“Depends,” she answered, nudging him with her shoulder, “Is there something to eat besides grilled radroach?”

He laughed. “Definitely.”

“Then, I’m starving.” 

* * *

It wasn’t long after her return from Corvega that Charlie had approached Preston about her wish to visit Diamond City, the “great jewel of the Commonwealth,” as the wastelanders sometimes called it. He had offered to accompany her without hesitation— as soon as her leg healed up, of course. At the time, she’d wondered if his offer was simply a way to keep an eye on her, to make sure his newly-appointed General didn’t croak in her first month on the job. Now, as she walked around with him in the city, watching his face light up with genuine excitement for the first time since she’d met him, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had other motivations for joining her.

Their search for a decent meal led them to a vendor in the middle of the marketplace, aptly called “Power Noodles,” and operated by a slightly unorthodox protectron chef named Takahashi. It took several clumsy attempts to order the only thing on the menu, and Takahashi served them what turned out to be honest-to-goodness ramen noodles. Charlie nearly wept at the sight, taste, and smell of real actual food that wasn’t questionably past its expiration date or harvested from directly irradiated flora and fauna. She never appreciated artificial flavorings and monosodium glutamate enough before the war, and she was unashamed to purchase several packets to take with her for later. 

It was Preston who had stood up first, paying the chef for both of their meals, and placing his hat back on his head before turning to Charlie. He extended a hand to her, and she glanced awkwardly between it and his face several times before she realized he intended to help her down and took it. If the nuclear fallout hadn’t killed chivalry, nothing could. 

She still had not let go of his hand, even as they finished perusing the vendors in the square. She’d managed to purchase a change of clothes, some worn jeans and a flannel shirt that actually fit, as well as a handful of bobby pins, some stale bubble gum, and a supersized bottle of Wonder Glue for Sturges. Preston didn’t buy anything for himself, but Charlie caught random glimpses of him laughing and shaking his head at her as she tried to haggle down the merchants, with little success. Once, their eyes met, and the same heat she’d previously attributed to whiskey rose to her face. 

She shook it away as she trailed behind him, through clusters of city dwellers and toward a clearing near the city gates. She could no longer deny the uncomfortable, burgeoning affection she felt for her companion. She could, however, pretend it didn’t exist, lock it up in her chest and place it on the mental shelf right next to the bottle which held her oceans of grief. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest way for her to handle her emotions, she knew, but it was the only one where they did not consume her. 

When Charlie finally escaped her thoughts, she noticed that Preston had slowed his pace to a halt, and was now gazing up at the rows and rows of empty seats in the stands. For someone who claimed to have passed through Diamond City several times in his life, he sure acted like some wonderstruck tourist seeing it for the first time. 

“In all the times I passed through here, I never really realized just how many seats there are,” Preston mused before turning to Charlie. “I sometimes try to picture what things looked like before the bombs destroyed it all, but… so many people in one place at the same time. It’s hard to imagine.”

“To be honest I never really understood it either,” Charlie admitted,” Back then, I had this idea that places like this, where enormous amounts of money were spent so that America could watch grown men hit tiny balls with wooden sticks, were a waste.” 

“It does sound kind of ridiculous when you put it that way.” 

“I’m glad it’s here, though,” she said, blinking up at the remnants of a scoreboard, “It looks like it’s given lots of people a safe place to live.”

Preston smiled, but only briefly, and sighed as the wistfulness faded from his face. “It’s good to know there’s at least one thing that’s gotten better since your time.” 

He didn’t mean for his words to cut her, and they didn’t at first, not until she processed the fact that he’d alluded to her earlier conversation with Piper. Boy did they ever smart after it clicked. She fumbled around in her head looking for some balm of a response.

“Listen, I—” she began, but was interrupted as something slammed into her shoulder and knocked her into Preston. 

The man who smacked into her was tall and stocky, dressed in the black uniform and baseball helmet all of the other DC Security Guards wore. He looked back, and glared at the both of them. “Stop standing in the middle of the fucking street, you goddamn hicks.” 

“Hick” was an insult Charlie hadn’t expected to still be in use in the 23rd Century, and she puffed up, preparing the most artfully profane comeback she could think of; however the man continued to stomp away, and before she could yell after him another guard approached, stopping when he was shoulder to shoulder with Charlie. 

“Don’t mind him,” the guard said, pushing his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. The next time he spoke, his voice was loud enough that the other guard could hear him. “Ralph had to dump his girl last night ‘cause she left the cap on her toothpaste.” 

“Who does that?” Ralph called back, voice audibly strained with betrayal, “A synth! That’s who.” 

“Or just your regular old run of the mill psychopath,” the guard beside Charlie muttered. 

“I keep the cap on my tooth paste,” Charlie chimed in with a shrug.

“Me too,” echoed Preston.

The man scoffed and waved his hand dismissively at them, “Weirdos.”'

“What the hell just happened,” Charlie asked as she watched the unusual security officer walk away and then glanced over at Preston.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he replied.

There was a beat of silence in which he glanced around the area, then brought his gaze back to her, amusement bright in his eyes and apparent in the dimples that formed in his cheeks. Before Charlie could conjure up anything to say, he erupted into a fit of laughter unlike anything she’d heard from her stoic lieutenant yet. It wasn’t the polite chuckle he offered to Mama Murphy when she teased or flirted with him, nor was it the snort he’d sometimes let out when Sturges made an off-color joke that he knew he shouldn’t find funny. It was real, genuine laughter, and it was enchanting as hell. 

Charlie slipped easily into the contagion, laughter bubbling up past the wall of anxiety that had taken up permanent residence in her chest. For just those few moments, as they stood giggling like children surrounded by famous green walls and so many neon lights, she felt something more than empty. When the laughter finally subsided, it was Preston who spoke first, a smile still painted on his face. 

“Man,” he said looking down at the ground and kicking at the dirt, “I can’t even remember the last time I had this much fun.” 

“And to think it’s all because of a toothpaste cap,” she joked, tilting her head. 

“No.” Preston shook his head and looked up at her. “I mean, that was kind of hilarious, but I’m talking about this whole night… hanging out with you. I needed this.”

“So did I,” she replied, reaching for his hand almost unconsciously, “We should do it more often.”

He glanced thoughtfully between her eyes and extended hand before taking it, allowing their fingers to lace. A grin spread across his face. “Yeah?”

Charlie smiled and nodded, embracing the fondness swelling in her chest. “Yeah.” 

After a few seconds Preston cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s, uh, it’s getting pretty late isn’t it?”

Charlie checked the clock on her PipBoy, reading the time aloud. “23:57.”

He blinked a few times, clearly surprised. “Well, damn.” 

“Time flies when you’re having fun, huh,” she teased, releasing his hand and bumping his shoulder with hers. 

“I guess it does,” he sighed, “We should probably start looking for somewhere to sleep for the night.”

Charlie opened her mouth to ask if there were any hotels in town, and realized she had no idea if hotels existed anymore. Bringing her hand to her face, she sighed and mumbled into her palm. “God, I don’t even know if you mean rooms with beds or a suitably clean spot on the ground where we can use our jackets as pillows.”

A warm pressure fell on her middle back, Preston’s hand, and she looked up and over at him. “I mean rooms with beds,” he reassured her, “And, come to think of it, I might actually know a place.” 

* * *

As it turned out, inns still existed in 2287. The place Preston knew of turned out to be a sizable bar and inn constructed in the ruins of one of the old team dugouts, aptly named “The Dugout Inn.” The lighting was low and comfortable, some slow jazz from the 1950s hummed over the radio as patrons sat on couches and at tables nursing bottles of pale ale or sipping whiskey as they chatted. Charlie could have gotten used to a place like that. 

On the radio, the bumbling mess she’d come to know as Travis tried and failed to tell a joke about mutfruit. At her side, Preston snorted out a laugh and rolled his eyes. Several of the Inn’s customers booed and called for someone to change the station. 

“Change station,” asked the man standing behind the bar with a hearty laugh and an inexplicable Slavic accent. He looked to be in his forties, balding and dressed in a flannel shirt and denim jacket with a fur-lined collar. “Change to what exactly? Cambridge Police station? Boring classical bullshit stati—”

“Vadim,” hissed another inexplicably Slavic man as he turned the dial on the radio until some concerta-symphony-thing started playing. He looked identical to the bartender, only he wore a dirty grey suit and a scowl instead.

“What, brother? They make stupid suggestions,” Vadim said and shook his head, waiting until his brother walked past him and down the hallway before grabbing the radio and turning it back to Travis and his Diamond City station. 

_ Sixty Minute Man  _ poured through the speakers, and Charlie brought her hand up to her mouth to stifle a chuckle at the irony. When she looked up, Vadim appeared to have locked eyes with Preston, his already wide grin stretching even further across his face as he waved and shouted, “Preston Garvey, old friend, is that you?”

Preston glanced at Charlie as if he was gauging her reaction, and then looked back at Vadim, mirroring the delighted expression. “The one and only.”

He made his way toward the bar, and Charlie tailed closely behind. As they approached Vadim pointed a thumb to the radio. He’d clearly connected the same dots as she had. “What is the old American saying? Speak of the Devil?” 

Easing down onto one of the stools, taking his hat off, and setting it on the bar, Preston answered. “I tell you, we could use some of that Lovin’ Dan’ energy right now, Vadim.”

“You will be first to know if I find some,” Vadim chuckled, but his expression fell, eyebrows pressing together in concern. “It is good to see you. I heard rumors about Quincy… I was worried.” 

“Yeah, it got pretty bad,” Preston admitted somberly, looking down, then another sidelong glance at Charlie before he returned his attention to the man behind the bar, “But things are starting to look up now.”

“This is good news,” Vadim, bringing his eyes up to examine Charlie casually, “It could not possibly have to do with this lady friend of yours, could it?”

She flinched, shaking her head more quickly than she needed to and giving a dismissive hand wave. She wasn’t his “lady friend,” and she certainly had nothing to do with turning his outlook around. Hell, all she’d done was stumble into a museum half out of her mind. Things were looking up for Preston because he was no longer running for his life, the lone shield between the dangers of the Commonwealth and the settlers he was charged to protect. Things were looking up because the Minutemen were back in business. 

She opened her mouth to decline the undeserved credit, when Preston turned back to her, nearly beaming, and said, “It may have something to do with her.”

Vadim’s brows shot up in amusement. “Oh ho?”

Charlie rolled her eyes playfully, pretending her face wasn’t on fire, and moved to sit on the stool next to Preston, leaning her elbows on the table. “Preston likes to put me on a pedestal because I was in the right place at the right time.”

“And Charlie likes to pretend she didn’t throw a grenade down a deathclaw’s throat,” Preston corrected, giving her a nudge with his elbow. 

“So the lady’s name is Charlie?” asked Vadim. 

She nodded. “Charlie Smart. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Same to you! Any friend of Garvey’s is a friend of mine.”

“Just don’t let him talk you into trying any of that moonshine of his,” Preston warned, smirking, “That shit’ll make you forget your own name.” 

“What? No,” Vadim feigned offense, “ Only side effect of Bobrov Brothers’ Moonshine is growing of hair on strong, feminine chest.”

Charlie laughed at the exchange, even as her thoughts drifted to moonshine and memories of home. It was an Appalachian staple after all, a relic of the farce that Prohibition had been. Folks in the mountains brewed hooch in five gallon stills far away from the prying eyes of “The Man,” and the practice had never stopped. Growing up, Charlie’s next door neighbors had a still in their basement, and they’d occasionally deliver mason jars of moonshine-infused peaches and cherries. She had blurry memories of sneaking the cherries from the cupboard when she was fifteen or sixteen, and taking them to Nate’s house just down the road. His parents were never home, and no one cared if they consumed an entire jar. 

Shaking herself out of forever ago memories, she glanced from Vadim to Preston, then back, and smiled. “As much as I’d love to forget my own name... among other things, we’re just here for rooms tonight.” 

“Have it your way,” he replied with a shrug, as he reached below the counter and pulled up a clipboard that held a single, indescribably stained sheet of paper that appeared to serve as the inn’s guest book. Scanning the page, Vadim winced and looked back up at Charlie. 

“Let me guess,” she remarked dryly, “There aren’t any open rooms.” 

“No, no,” Vadim corrected her, “We have room. A room.”

Charlie blinked a few times, realization of the predicament dawning on her. Under typical circumstances, she wouldn’t have batted a single eyelash at the thought of sharing a room with someone as harmless as Preston. Especially considering the fact that they’d slept near one another on multiple occasions on the road and their first few nights in Sanctuary. She shouldn’t have even thought twice about it, and yet there she stood with nothing but a blank expression and a head full of second thoughts. 

“That’s fine,” Preston piped up nonchalantly, as if it were nothing. Maybe it was. “How much?”

“For you and lady friend,” Vadim answered, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, “On the house.”

“You sure,” Preston asked, tilting his head, oblivious to the other man’s gestures. Vadim’s brother could be heard cursing and scoffing about Vadim’s penchant for charity, and Preston continued. “We don’t care to pay.” 

“Nonsense!” Vadim bent down under the counter and rose back up with a rusty key dangling from a keychain that was shaped like a Nuka Cola bottle, “Here. You’re in room at far end of hall. Try not to disturb our other guests.” 

Another suggestion that her companion failed to notice as he took the key, put his hat on and said, “Thanks, man.” Clearly, Preston had never spent hours consuming hundreds of pages of tropey romance literature in his early twenties as Charlie had. 

As they made their way down the hall and toward their room, Preston chuckled and started to shake his head characteristically. “Vadim  _ totally _ thinks we’re sleeping together.” 

A wave of relief washed over her. “Thank God.” 

“What,” he asked matter-of-factly, stopping in front of the door marked with the number five at the end of the hall and fiddling with the key and lock, “Did you think I didn’t notice?”

She shrugged and scrunched her nose. “Maybe.”    
  
“Miss Charlotte,” he exclaimed, imitating Codsworth in faux-offense as he twisted the knob, pushed open the door, and turned back to her with a smile, “I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”

A smirk tugged at one of Charlie’s cheeks, and she rolled her eyes, taking a step into the room. “Does it not embarrass you that your bartender buddy thinks we’re going to get it on in—” she flipped on the light and looked around the space provided for them— “this sad, dusty little room?” 

“This is actually pretty nice compared to other places I’ve stayed.” Preston closed the door, locked it, and tucked the key into one of his duster pockets. “There aren’t even any radroaches.” 

Charlie grimaced and moved to sit down on the edge of the sheetless bed, then flicked her eyes up to him. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how you expertly evaded my question.”

He sighed and flopped down on the patchy brown sofa that was directly across the room from the bed. “No,” he said as he took off his hat yet again, reaching over to place it on an end table. It was amazing how the Bobrov brothers managed to squeeze so much furniture into a room that was hardly bigger than a shoebox. 

“No?”

“It doesn’t embarrass me,” Preston explained matter-of-factly, gaze dancing around the room before settling on Charlie, “Does it embarrass you?”

“No,” she lied, “I mean… why would it? We’re two, grown-ass, consenting adults, and if that’s what we were doing here— which it obviously isn’t— there would be nothing to be ashamed of.” 

The room was quiet as he took a moment to raise his eyebrows and blink at her before letting out a quiet chuckle. “Whatever you say,  _ General. _ ”

They readied themselves for bed in a comfortable silence, with the exception of the rustling of fabric as boots and coats slipped off. Without his ridiculous-- yet oddly appropriate-- period attire, Preston looked so  _ normal _ , like someone she might have stood in line behind in the Super Duper Mart, someone who did normal things like laundry and family dinners. He deserved a life like that, she thought. If anyone had no business living in Hell, it was Preston Garvey. 

“Something wrong,” he asked when he caught her mid stare. 

She shook her head. “Uh… no. Well, not really.” 

He didn’t respond, except to give her a knowing look. 

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, looking down at the floorboards. 

“For what?”

“The things I said during the interview with Piper.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I got carried away talking about my old life, and I didn’t consider how it would sound for the General of the Minutemen to talk shit about the Commonwealth we’re supposed to be saving.” 

Preston laughed humorlessly. “The Commonwealth is shit, Charlie. That’s just honest.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And if I’d had your life… well, I think I’d miss it, too,” he interjected as he stood up and sat down beside her on the bed, “Hell, I sometimes look around and wonder what is even the point. Why am I fighting for this place?”

Charlie lay her hand over his where it rested on his knee. He looked down at their hands, and then turned his palm up so that their fingers could interlock. Without its glove, his hand was warm and softer than she expected it to be. She caught the gold flare of her wedding band, and hot tears brimmed in her eyes. She couldn’t figure out whether the emotion was grief or guilt, and she refused to think more about it. 

Clearing her throat as if it would force her feelings away, she said, “That’s why I apologized. I don’t want you to doubt that what you’ve done, what you do, matters.”

“Trust me, I was doubting that before you showed up,” he admitted, absently tracing her thumb with his while he talked, “You don’t owe me an apology.” 

“Preston—”

“You don’t,” he repeated more firmly, “I wasn’t just kidding around with Vadim out there. Things really have started looking up because of you.” 

“I…” She began but faltered, unable to tell if his words were just a compliment or more than that. It sure felt like more than that, sitting on a bed in a dimly lit hotel room and holding hands after an evening of eating and shopping and talking that was uncomfortably close to a date when she thought about it. She pulled her hand away from Preston to rest on her own lap, trying not to think too much about the hurt look it left on his face. 

“You blow up one deathclaw,” she deflected, “And suddenly you’re a superhero.” 

“Yeah,” he said, sighing and standing up. He smirked and then pointed toward the headboard of the bed. “Now, hand me one of those pillows, Grognak.” 

* * *

Charlie awoke the next morning to a pounding chest, tears streaming down her face. She rarely dreamed, but when she did it was always a nightmare that she could barely remember as soon as she opened her eyes. Flashes of Nate, Shaun, the bombs, her conscious moments in the cryochamber, her past was a phantom limb, aching where she could no longer reach.

She didn’t actually remember falling asleep. After her less than comfortable moment with Preston, he’d taken one of the pillows and gone to lay on the couch while she curled up on the bed, wondering how it was that the Bobrovs ran an inn without blankets for their guests. They’d stayed up for sometime afterward, talking about innocuous things like comic books, music, and everything else but the elephant in the room. She figured she must have dozed off sometime before they got back to the elephant again. 

Yawning and stretching, she sat up and looked over toward the couch where Preston still dozed, his breath slow and heavy. She’d never seen him asleep before, always in bed before and up after him. She’d begun to question whether he actually slept at all. Now she knew, and she refused to disturb him. 

That did not mean she would wait a minute longer to head to find Nick Valentine’s office. As quietly as she could, she pulled on her jacket and boots, fastened her PipBoy to her wrist, and slipped out of the room. Were they in a pre-war inn, she would have left Preston a note on one of those little stationery pads where the paper was decorated with the company’s logo.  _ Gone to see a guy about a baby _ . Unfortunately they weren’t at a Motel 7, and there wasn’t anyone at the bar with whom she could leave a message about her whereabouts. She would have to trust his ability to connect the dots. 

Stepping out of the Dugout, she squinted her eyes in the sunlight, bringing a hand up to her forehead to serve as a visor while she glanced around. Still clueless as to where that damn detective agency was located. It was well hidden for an office that was supposed to have more than one glowing neon sign pointing toward it. Frustrated, she let out a huff, moving to walk down one of the nearby alleyways, and instead bumped directly into a suit of Diamond City security riot gear. 

“Shit. Sorry,” she muttered, as the officer turned around slowly. “Oh, it’s you.” 

The guard from the night before, Ralph’s friend, who’d worn sunglasses instead of a helmet, stood in front of her, an amused smirk twitching at his lips. “We’ve got to stop bumping into each other like this.” 

“Mhmm,” she said dismissively as she continued to scan the area before looking up at him, “Say, maybe you could help me.” 

“What? Did you lose your friend,” he asked, words thick with sarcasm, “Don’t worry, he’s the only person in DC dressed like an American Revolution action figure. He shouldn’t be hard to find.” 

“What? No,” she replied, shaking her head, “He’s not lost, just sleeping.”

“Then what do you need,” he urged, “I’m kind of busy here.” 

Taking a deep, centering breath, she placed her hands on her hips and answered. “I’m looking for Valentine’s Detective Agency.” 

The guard raised his eyebrows and pointed out toward the market. “Nick’s place is directly across the market. There’s neon signs. You can’t miss it.”

Charlie followed the line of his arm, mentally charting out a path through the city. She turned around to thank the unusual guard only to see that he had vanished. 

“Weirdo,” she mumbled, and trudged out into the square. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for taking EIGHT MILLION YEARS to update. This chapter gave me fits, and the spoons have been scarce. Thanks for sticking around. Let me know what you think! <3


	8. Point and Shoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night in May 2276 turns out to be pivotal for young Preston.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The new world is as yet  
> behind the veil of destiny  
> In my eyes, however  
> its dawn has been unveiled”  
> ― Allama Iqbal

_**May 2276, Somewhere Near Jamaica Plain** _

He awoke to shouting outside his house, frenzied and unfamiliar to the typically quiet backdrop of the settlement. However, it was the gunshots and desperate screams, followed by what sounded like his front door slamming open that propelled him upright, heart hammering furiously against his ribs. Shaking away the groggy confusion, he rushed to his feet and out into the hall just in time to see his dad stumble in through the doorway and collapse into his mom’s arms. 

Paralyzed, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than watch her calmly lower the injured man to the ground. “Dad,” he said, barely more than a whisper.

Hismom snapped around at the sound of his voice, her gentle features illuminated only by the orange glow of a nearby lamp. “Preston,  _ baby _ ,” she said, voice impossibly calm despite the circumstances, “I need you to go get my medical kit from my bedroom closet.”

Preston could only nod in response, panic clouding his mind. 

“And your dad’s shotgun from under the bed,” she added, “Looks like we might need it.” 

“But--” 

“Hurry, son,” she urged, frowning as his dad hissed in pain beneath her touch, “We don’t have time for ‘buts.’”

“Yes ma’am.” He nodded again, before darting back to his parents’ bedroom to do as he’d been told. He grabbed the small aluminum tin filled with his mother’s collection of stims, bandages, alcohol, and other supplies she used to care for her patients from it’s typical spot in the closet. Then, without taking time to stop completely, reached under the bed, taking hold of the stock of the gun that his dad kept there, locked and loaded, should there be any trouble. 

And there was definitely trouble. 

Returning to the front room, his steps faltered as he noticed the deep red stain spreading across his dad’s shirt, from shoulder to chest. Preston swallowed hard, and urged himself forward until he stood right above his parents, gun gripped firmly in one hand as he extended the kit out to his mom with the other. His arm wobbled as she took it from him. 

“Thank you.”

“Is he going to be okay, Mama?” His fingers tightened around the barrel of the gun as he spoke. 

She turned to look up at him, flashing a reassuring smile, and sighed, “I think so. It’s just his shoulder.” 

His dad grunted out a pained laugh. “It isn’t  _ just _ anything. It hurts like hell.” 

She shushed him and began cutting away the dirty fabric of his flannel shirt. “You’ll live.” 

A crackling explosion rang out outside, as if someone had launched a grenade, and Preston’s gaze snapped to the door and then down to the shotgun in his hands. He knew how to use it, had shot many empty Nuka Cola bottles from the remnants of a fence in the yard. But he’d never shot at another person, never wanted to. He glanced back down at his mom and wounded father, took a steeling breath, and headed toward the door. 

“Be careful, sweetheart,” his mother called after him. 

He stopped just as his hand fell on the doorknob, forcing a smile before turning back to look at her with a promise. “I will.” 

As he pulled the door open and stepped outside, it was chaos, gunshots and screams swirling around him from all directions. A house on the far side of the settlement was on fire, smoke billowing out and looming overhead as his neighbors ran about wildly. In the distance, silhouettes of spiked and caged armor danced in the firelight, shaking guns in the air and tossing molotov cocktails into windows. 

_ Raiders _ . Preston thought to himself. Of course it was the damn raiders. It always was. For as long as he’d lived in the area, which was ten of the seventeen years he’d been alive, raiders periodically stormed through the area in search of some sort of “treasure,” rumored to be buried within the ruins of Jamaica Plain. It seemed they’d been showing up more frequently and in larger numbers as the years passed, and it had only been a matter of time before they stumbled upon the settlement, and everyone knew it. That’s why they signed on with the Minutemen just two years prior, an offer of partnership and protection. Neither of which Preston could see any of at present as he watched settlers chased and gunned down yards away from him.

Trembling, he cocked the shotgun and pulled it up to aim, to do something. A raider, wrapped in sackcloth and leather and goggles spotted him, and rushed forward, directly into his sights. It was the perfect shot, and easy one; however, as Preston’s finger hovered over the trigger, he froze, guilt and terror seizing his chest. 

How was he supposed to shoot at a person? It was a person under all of that raider gear, after all, right? An incredibly violent, drug addled person, but still...

Before he could will his finger to the trigger, a loud buzzing burst of red light flashed past his eyes, striking the raider on the chest. The raider cried out and fell to the ground, smoke curling up from his body. More blasts of red light burned through the night sky, filling the air with that distinct ozone scent of laser weapons. The Minutemen had shown up after all. Preston let out the breath he’d been holding, and lowered his weapon, thankful his conscience hadn’t cost him his life. At least not this time. 

“Y’know,” said a soft voice off to his side, “The gun only works if you point it and shoot.” 

He looked up to see a young woman, around his age with bright blue eyes and unruly brown hair, leaning against a fence post near his house. He glanced down at his weapon and back up at her. “I… um…” was all he could manage. 

“Just kiddin’,” she chirped cheerfully, pushing herself off the fence and approaching him, hand outstretched in greeting, “Amelia Hollis, Commonwealth Minutemen.”

Preston said nothing in reply, simply taking her hand and shaking it. She continued, “You all should be safe now. We’re going to do a few sweeps of the area, then hang out the rest of the night to make sure there aren’t any stragglers.” 

“Thank you,” he answered quietly, “For helping us.” 

“Well, to quote my obnoxious old man, ‘That’s what we do! Help people at a minute’s notice.’” She winked at him, but then smiled more seriously. “You’re welcome, uh… I’m sorry I totally forgot to ask your name.” 

“Preston,” he blurted out, “Preston Garvey.” 

“Right, well it’s nice to meet you,” Amelia said, smile fading into concern, “You got a family, Preston?”

He nodded and pointed a thumb back toward his house. “Yeah. My mom and dad are inside.” 

“Are they okay?”

“One of those raider bastards got my dad in the shoulder, but my mom’s good at medicine. She said he’ll be fine.” 

“Good,” she sighed, genuine relief washing over her face. She glanced over her shoulder toward the group of Minutemen congregating near the center of the settlement and then looked back at Preston. “I better get back to the others, but I’m glad we could help.”

“Thanks again.” 

“You’re welcome again,” she replied, tipping her hat as she turned and marched away. 

A smile twitched on Preston’s lips as he watched the woman disappear beyond the curtain of thick smoke. An idea bloomed in his mind, one that was as old and familiar as the backs of his own hands, one he’d always dismissed as a little boy dream that he’d never quite grown out of. But he was practically a man now, and dreaming wasn’t good enough anymore. Standing in his front yard, freezing at the thought of protecting himself, protecting his family couldn’t cut it. He needed to do something, take a stand. 

“I want to join the Minutemen,” he blurted before he’d even crossed the threshold into his house. 

His dad was standing up now, tattered flannel shirt unbuttoned and draped over his neatly bandaged shoulder. He met Preston’s gaze, dark eyes filled with worry. His mom stood several feet away, arms crossed with a cocked eyebrow and a smirk on her face. 

“We’ve heard that one before,” she said, punctuating the sentence with a soft laugh as she moved to stand closer to his father, “Those might’ve been the first words that ever came out of your mouth.”

“Damn near it.” His dad laughed and shook his head, looking to his mom with admiration before glancing back at him. The laughter in his eyes had faded away to concern again. 

“What,” Preston asked. 

There was a long pause in which neither of his parents said a word, then his dad stepped forward, placed a hand on his shoulder, and tilted his head. “Tonight scared you, didn’t it? And there’s no use lyin’ to me because I can see it all over your face.” 

“I’m not sure what happened out there,”Preston sighed, embarrassed, and looked down at his hands that still clung to the old shotgun, “I had the gun in my hands, a raider right in my sights and… I couldn’t shoot.”

“You’re talking like that’s a bad thing.” The man leaned back and crossed his arms, faint smile on his lips.

“Isn’t it? Pretty sure you taught me to shoot at bad guys.” 

“Son, I taught you to shoot at bottles,” he laughed, “Killing a person… well, that’s different.” 

“But the raiders are--”

“People, just like you and me?” His dad thought a minute and then corrected himself. “Well maybe not exactly like you and me, but you get what I’m saying.”

“I say shoot first, feel sorry later,” his mom stated pointedly, eyes flicking between Preston and his dad, and then back, lingering as she continued, “God knows those bastards aren’t going to think twice before carving you up into little pieces.” 

“Gabrielle,” his father spoke his mother’s name in a way that was so gentle and firm all at once, “I’m trying to teach our son a lesson.” 

“And what’s that,  _ Noah _ ,” she snapped back at him, clearly upset, “That he should just lay down and die because the bad guys are people too?” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“I know.” 

Preston’s parents looked at one another, a silent understanding passing between them, as if they’d carried on an entire conversation with just their eyes. Then, his mom turned to look at him, eyes glassy like they always were when she was trying not to cry. His dad pressed his lips together, forming a thin line. 

“Why are you guys looking at me like that?” Preston let out a nervous laugh, and straightened his posture. 

“Is this really what you want to do, son,” his dad asked, voice strained, “Do you really want to join the militia?”

Preston gave a quick and confident nod. “Yeah. I want to learn to protect myself. I want to help people.”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, his mom rushed forward, wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she could. He stiffened at the gesture, before bringing up his arms to pat her on the back. “Mama…” he said, feeling tears burning his own eyes. 

She pulled back to look up at him, and placed a hand on each side of his face. “My little boy, growing up to be a hero.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he protested, words becoming more slurred as his mom’s gentle face holding turned into a playful squeeze of his cheeks, “I doubt I’ll make that much of a difference anyway.” 

“I think you will, Preston,” his dad said, a proud smile stretching across his face, “More than you know.”

They stood there together for several moments longer, before his mom sighed and stepped back and away from him, resting her weight on one hip and crossing her arms. “What’s your plan?”

“I talked to one of the Minutemen who came tonight, and she said they’re heading out tomorrow afternoon,” Preston explained, watching as realization dawned on each of his parent’s faces that this likely meant he’d be leaving the next day, “I’ll have to talk to her ranking officer, see if they even want a new recruit. I haven’t honestly thought any further than that.” 

“That’s awfully soon.” His dad voiced the concern that’d been on his face. 

“I know, but I don’t want to wait for another raider attack to--” he began to argue but stopped when he saw the resignation in the other man’s eyes-- “Sorry, Dad.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Your mom and I are just going to worry about you.” 

“And  _ miss  _ you.” 

“I’ll miss you all too,” Preston admitted, eyes falling to the ground, before lifting them back up with a smile, “But I’ll swing by as much as I can.” 

“You better,” his mother quipped. 

It wasn’t long before they’d all gone back to bed, nerves soothed enough from the jarring attack to get some semblance of rest before the next day. Preston struggled to sleep, thoughts and possibilities racing through his head, fear and uncertainty rising in his chest. As soon as the sun came up he would find Amelia and explain what he hoped to do. Preston had always looked up to the Minutemen, admired them for doing their best, when no one else would. He’d wanted to be one for as long as he could remember. Now, if all went according to plan, he would be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks so much for reading and giving feedback. It means SO much. I wanted to make a little note here to say that updates are going to be slower than originally planned for the foreseeable future, as writing has been a bit like pulling teeth these days. It may not be a chapter a week, but it'll get finished. This is a story I really wanna tell. <3


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